THE   DE  FORESTS 
AND 

HE  WALLOON  FOUNDING 
OF  NEW  AMSTERDAM 

BY 

LUCY  GARRISON  GREEN 


PRINTED  PRIVATELY 
IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THE  CELEBRATION 

OF  THE 

THREE  HUNDREDTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF 
THE  SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW  YORK 
BY  WALLOONS 


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THE  DE  FORESTS  AND 
THE  WALLOON  FOUNDING 
OF 

NEW  AMSTERDAM 


I 

1 


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I 

1 


THE    DE  FORESTS 
AND 

THE  WALLOON  FOUNDING 
OF   NEW  AMSTERDAM 

BY 

LUCY  GARRISON  GREEN 
A  THESIS 

PRESENTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF 
THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF 

NEBRASKA 

IN  PARTIAL  FULFILLMENT  OF 
REQUIREMENTS  FOR 
THE  DEGREE  OF  MASTER  OF  ARTS 
DEPARTMENT  OF 
AMERICAN  HISTORY 


LINCOLN,  NEBRASKA 
1916 


Copyright  1924 
By  Lucy  Garrison  Green 


FOREWORD 


BY  a  fortunate  coincidence,  just  a  short  month 
before  the  celebration  of  the  Three  Hundredth 
Anniversary  of  the  Settlement  of  New  York  by 
Walloons,  this  thesis  was  called  to  my  attention.  It 
was  written  by  Miss  Lucy  Garrison  Green  of  Lincoln, 
Nebraska,  some  eight  years  ago  as  qualification  for 
her  master's  degree  in  the  University  of  Nebraska. 
And  it  was  written  before  any  plans  to  celebrate 
this  anniversary  had  taken  shape  or,  so  far  as  I 
know,  had  been  considered.  I  found  it  existed  only 
in  typewritten  form  in  the  library  of  the  University. 
It  seemed  to  me  to  have  such  scholarly  quality  and 
literary  charm  as  to  merit  circulation  at  this  time. 
I  am,  therefore,  having  it  privately  printed  with  the 
consent  of  the  writer. 

1  ask  myself  whether  perhaps  it  does  not,  by  its 
title,  unduly  emphasize  the  part  which  the  Walloons 
took  in  the  settlement  of  New  York.  There  seems 
to  be  no  question  but  that  the  first  real  settlers — 
those  who  came  to  stay  as  distinguished  from  those 
who  came  to  trade — ^were  "mostly  Walloons.''  But 
these  Walloons  were  sent  here  by  the  Dutch  in  a 
Dutch  ship  and  they  came  from  Leyden,  the  city  of 
Holland  which  so  generously  befriended  them,  as 

v 


well  as  their  English  fellow-exiles  of  "Mayflower" 
fame. 

But  to  honor  the  Walloons,  the  descendants  of 
those  ancient  Belgae  who  so  troubled  Julius  Caesar, 
is  not  less  to  honor  the  Dutch  who  made  their 
enterprise  possible.  There  is  glory  enough  to  go 
around.  And  so  broad-minded  a  people  as  the 
Dutch  certainly  will  not  begrudge  to  the  Walloons 
some  of  this  glory. 

1  also  question  whether  the  title  of  this  thesis 
should  not  have  more  properly  been  "the  settlement" 
than  "the  founding"  of  New  York.  There  seems 
to  be  no  question  but  that  the  first  permanent  set- 
tlers were  "mostly  Walloons,"  who  came  here  in 
1624.  There  also  seems  to  be  no  question  but  that 
the  first  organization  of  city  government  dated  from 
1626.  But  whatever  distinction  there  may  be  be- 
tween the  word  "settlement"  and  the  word  "found- 
ing" and  whatever  bearing  that  distinction  may  have 
on  any  anniversary  date,  it  is  1624  that  marks  the 
three  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  first  Walloon 
emigration.  Time  has  been  too  short  to  give  the 
author  or  anyone  opportunity  to  correct  proof. 
Responsibility  for  all  errors  must  therefore  rest  on 
the  broad  shoulders  of  the  "printer's  devil." 

Robert  W.  de  Forest. 

April  15,  1924. 


VI 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A.  Sources 

1.  Documents  Relating  to  the  Colonial  History 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  now  commonly  called 
"New  York  Colonial  Documents."  Collected  by 
John  R.  Brodhead. 

a.  Holland  Documents. 

b.  Dutch  Documents. 

c.  London  Documents. 

2.  Collections  of  New  York  Historical  Society. 

3.  New  York  Colonial  MSS.  State  Archives, 
Albany,  N.  Y. 

4.  Proceedings  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society 
(periodical  magazine). 

5 .  Year  Books  of  the  Holland  Society  of  New  York. 

6.  London  Public  Records. 

a.  State  Papers,  Colonial  Series,  America  and 
West  Indies. 

b.  British  State  Papers:  Holland,  1622. 

7.  Sloane  MS.  179  b.  in  British  Museum,  entitled 
"Journal  du  voyage  faict  par  les  peres  de  families 
envoyes  par  Mes  les  Directeurs  de  la  Compagnee  des 
Indes  Occidentals  pour  visiter  la  coste  de  Gujane." 
Written  by  Jesse  de  Forest  and  Jean  Mousnier  de  la 
Montagne.  Collected  by  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  founder 
of  the  British  Museum. 

•  • 

vn 


Bibliography 

8.  The  New  York  Genealogical  and  Biographical 
Record. 

9.  Registers  of  the  Huguenot  Church  of  Sedan, 
translated  from  the  French  by  J.  W.  De  Forest,  1900. 

10.  Baptismal  Register  of  the  Walloons,  Ley  den. 
Certified  copy  by  State  Archivist,  Leyden. 

B.  Secondary  Material 

1.  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  1853. 

John  Romeyn  Brodhead. 

2.  The  De  Forests  of  Avesnes  and  New  Nether- 
land.    1900.  J.  W.  De  Forest. 

3.  French  Blood  in  America.  1895. 

Thomas  Balch. 

4.  The  American  Nation :  a  History.  1607-1907. 

Albert  Bushnell  Hart. 

5.  A  Walloon  Family  in  America.    19 14. 

Mrs.  Robert  W.  De  Forest. 

6.  History  of  the  City  of  Albany.  1884. 

Arthur  James  Weise. 

7.  History  of  New  Netherland,  or  New  York 
under  the  Dutch.    1848.         E.  B.  O'Callaghan. 

8.  New  Amsterdam  and  Its  People.  1902. 

J.  H.  Innes. 

9.  The  French  in  America.  1895. 

Thomas  Balch. 

10.  The  England  and  Holland  of  the  Pilgrims. 
1906.   Henry  M.  Dexter  and  Morton  Dexter. 

1 1.  The  Puritans  in  Holland,  England  and  Amer- 
ica.   1892.  Douglas  Campbell. 

•  •  • 

vm 


THE  DE  FORESTS  AND  THE  WALLOON 
FOUNDING  OF  NEW  AMSTERDAM 


OUTLINE 

I.  Introduction. 

A.  Common  acceptance  of  the  Dutch  as  the 
first  settlers  of  New  Amsterdam. 

B.  Casual  mention  of  a  few  Walloons  as  in- 
cluded among  these  early  Dutch  settlers. 

C.  Recent  establishment  of  the  fact  that  the 
De  Forest  colony  of  Walloons  were  predecessors 
of  the  Dutch. 

II.  Walloons  in  general. 

A.  Racial  history  and  distribution. 

B.  Characteristics. 

C.  Religion. 

D.  Emigration  due  to  persecution. 

1 .  Number  migrating. 

2.  Havens  found. 

3.  Reasons  for  migrating  again. 

4.  General  Results — permanent  loss  to  land 
left,  gain  to  land  sought. 

III.  Comparison  of  the  Walloon  Colony  in  Ley  den 
with  the  contemporary  Puritan  Colony  from  England 
in  Ley  den. 

ix 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

A.  Previous  experience  of  each  colony. 

B.  Fellowship  in  Ley  den. 

C.  Emigration  of  part  of  the  Separatist  Church 
under  Robinson  in  Ley  den  to  America  in  1620. 

D.  Stimulus  to  emigration  of  Walloons. 

IV.  Jesse  De  Forest,  Leader  of  the  Walloon  mi- 
gration to  New  Netherland. 

A.  French  origin  and  early  connections. 

B.  Family  migration  to  Holland. 

C.  Reasons  leading  to  emigration. 

V.  Efforts  of  De  Forest  to  arrange  for  the  emigra- 
tion of  a  colony  under  auspices  of  the  British  Virginia 
Company. 

A.  Interview  with  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  British 
Ambassador  to  the  Netherlands. 

B.  Written  Transactions. 

1.  "The  Demands"  of  the  colonists. 

2.  "The  Round  Robin." 

3.  Reply  of  the  Directors. 

C.  Result  on  plans  of  the  Walloons. 

VI .  Efforts  of  De  Forest  to  arrange  for  the  emigra- 
tion of  a  colony  under  Dutch  auspices. 

A.  Petition  to  "The  States  of  Holland  and  West 
Friesland"  (provincial  legislature). 

B.  Petition  to  "The  States  General"  (national 
legislative  body  of  The  United  Netherlands). 

C.  Dealings  with  the  newly  created  Dutch  West 
India  Company. 

X 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

VII.  De  Forest's  Expedition  to  Guiana  under  the 
Dutch  West  India  Company. 

A.  General   stage  of  colonization   in  South 
America. 

B.  Sailing  routes  to  the  New  World. 

C.  John    De   Laet's   "History  of  the  New 
World,"  and  Wassenaer's  "Historical  Account." 

D.  The  Journal  of  Jesse  De  Forest,  Sloane  MS. 
179  b.  "A  Voyage  to  Guiana." 

E.  "Les  peres  de  families":  personnel  of  De 
Forest's  colonists  aboard  the  "Pigeon." 

F.  Companion  voyage  of  "The  Mackerel"  and 
"The  Pigeon"  from  Leyden  to  the  New  World. 

G.  The  settlement  along  the  Wyapoko  on  the 
Wild  Coast. 

H.  Death  of  Jesse  De  Forest. 

I.  The  colonists'  return  to  Holland. 

VIII.  De  Forest's  contemporary  Walloon  colony 
for  the  Hudson  River. 

A.  The  "Nieuwe  Nederlandt,"  skipper  Cor- 
nelis  Mey;  date  of  voyage. 

B.  Personnel  of  the  Colony. 

C.  Landing  on  Manhattan;  first  experiences. 

D.  Comparative  historic  importance  of  the  little 
settlement. 

IX.  Expedition  of  Jean  La  Montague,  De  Forest's 
colleague  and  son-in-law,  to  Tobago. 

A.  La  Montague's  return  from  the  Guiana  ven- 
ture, and  marriage  to  Rachel  De  Forest. 

xi 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

B.  Unsuccessful  colony  at  Tobago. 

C.  La  Montagne's  return,  and  readiness  for 
new  ventures. 

X.  Emigration  of  Jesse  De  Forest's  three  children, 
Hendrick,  Isaac  and  Rachel,  with  the  latter's  hus- 
band. La  Montagne. 

A.  Gerard  De  Forest,  brother  of  Jesse. 

B.  Hendrick  De  Forest,  son  of  Jesse. 

C.  The  Patroon  Kiliaen  van  Rensselaer. 

D.  The  Swanendael  Colony. 

E.  The  Rensselaerswyck  Expedition. 

1.  Contract  between  Kiliaen  van  Rensselaer 
and  Gerard  De  Forest  for  joint  equipment  and 
profits  of  the  vessel  "  Rensselaerswyck." 

2.  Personnel  of  the  expedition. 

3.  Voyage  and  Landing. 

F.  Location  of  lands  first  held  by  the  De 
Forests. 

G.  Death  of  Hendrick  De  Forest. 

XI.  The  "Muscoota  Bouweries,''  or  Walloon 
homesteads. 

A.  Hendrick  De  Forest's,  afterwards  Dr.  La 
Montague's,  called  "  Vredendael." 

B.  Isaac  De  Forest's,  "on  the  Kill  that  runs 
round  the  Island." 

C.  Philippe  Du  Trieux',  on  the  East  River 
overlooking  Smit's  Vly,  now  Fulton  Market. 

D.  General  Conditions. 

1 .   Degree  of  comfort  in  home. 

xii 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

2.  Results  of  French  skill  and  taste. 

3.  Difficulty  regarding  service. 
E.  Danger  from  the  Indians. 

1 .  Leadership  of  La  Montague. 

2.  Appeal  to  the  West  India  Company. 

3.  Appeal  to  the  States  General  at  the  Hague. 

4.  Later  Services  of  La  Montague. 

XII.  Place  held  by  the  Walloons  in  the  early 
years  of  New  Amsterdam. 

A.  Civic  Organization. 

1.  The  Director-General. 

2.  "The  Nine  Men." 

3.  Great  and  Small  Burghers. 

4.  Minor  offices. 

B.  Representative  Walloon  Citizens. 

1.  Peter  Minuit. 

2.  Isaac  De  Forest. 

3.  Jean  Mousnier  La  Montague. 

4.  Philippe  Du  Trieux. 

C.  Descendants. 

D.  Interesting  contributions  to  the  earliest  life 
of  the  colony. 

1 .  The  driving  out  by  De  Forest's  Protestant 
Walloon  colony,  on  their  arrival  in  the  ''Nieuwe 
Nederlandt,  in  1623-4,  of  French  Catholic 
commander  about  to  land  on  Manhattan  for  the 
purpose  of  setting  up  the  arms  of  France,  then 
a  Roman  Catholic  power. 

2.  Establishment,  by  this  same  French- 
speaking,  Protestant  band,  of  the  first  perma- 

xiii 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

nent  town-building,  crop-raising  settlement  of 
New  York,  never  since  destroyed  or  abandoned. 

3.  Purchase  of  the  island  of  Manhattan  from 
the  Indians  by  Peter  Minuit  soon  after  his 
arrival  in  1626. 

4.  Treaty  of  La  Montagne  with  the  sachems 
for  the  purchase  of  all  the  territory  on  the 
Schuylkill. 

5.  Successful  defense  against  the  Indians,  at 
a  critical  time,  after  many  massacres,  by  a  com- 
bined force  of  Dutch,  Walloons  and  English, 
under  chief  command  of  La  Montagne. 

XIII.  Conclusion:  Investigation  of  the  facts  by 
the  Holland  Society  of  New  York. 

A.  Value  to  history  of  original  sources  either 
long  overlooked  or  only  recently  available. 

B.  Larger  share  of  credit,  than  has  commonly 
been  awarded,  due  to  earliest  Walloon  settlers. 

C.  Recognition  of  Jesse  De  Forest  as  the  real 
founder  of  New  Amsterdam,  now  the  City  of  New 
York. 


XIV 


THE  DE  FORESTS  AND 
THE  WALLOON  FOUNDING 
OF 

NEW  AMSTERDAM 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

THE  DE  FORESTS  AND  THE  WALLOON 
FOUNDING  OF  NEW  AMSTERDAM 

1.  Introduction 

IN  Brodhead's  "History  of  the  State  of  New 
York/'i  published  as  long  ago  as  1853,  t)ut  from 
its  careful  scholarship  still  substantially  reliable,  is  to 
be  found  an  account — fairly  correct  in  most  particu- 
lars, so  far  as  it  goes — of  the  Walloon  colony  which 
formed  the  first  permanent  settlement  upon  the 
island  of  Manhattan.  In  the  production  of  this 
work,  at  a  time  when  American  research  was  in  its 
infancy — as  the  author  himself  ^  says,  "under  the  re- 
cent impulse  to  historical  investigation" — Mr.  Brod- 
head,  with  patience  and  conscientiousness,  consulted 
such  original  authorities  as  were  then  within  reach. 
Realizing  the  importance  of  the  field,  he  continued, 
after  the  completion  of  his  "History,"  to  devote  his 
scholarship  for  many  years  to  the  collection,  in 
France,  England,  Holland,  and  America,  of  "  Docu- 
ments relating  to  the  Colonial  History  of  the  State 
of  New  York."  These  papers,  of  great  and  increasing 
value,  are  now  to  be  found  in  state  and  historical 
libraries  under  the  title  of  "New  York  Colonial 
Documents."  They  comprise  a  variety  of  sources. 
Several  of  these,  such  as  the  "Holland  Documents" 
and  "Dutch  Documents,"  are  among  the  source- 
material  consulted  in  the  preparation  of  this  paper. 

'"History  of  the  State  of  New  York,"  by  John  R.  Brodhead.  N.  Y.  1853,  Ch. 
V,  pp.  146-154.  »Preface  to  above. 

I 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

While  much  new  matter  of  interest  in  this  field  has 
since  come  to  light,  Mr.  Brodhead  as  the  first  scien- 
tific historian  of  this  period  should  receive  due 
acknowledgment  for  his  pioneer  labors — of  priceless 
worth  since  the  destruction  by  fire  of  the  State 
Archives  in  the  Capitol  at  Albany. 

With  the  steady  growth  in  the  past  twenty  years 
of  general  interest  in  matters  of  history  and  biogra- 
phy, further  research  among  early  records  of  state  in 
Holland,  England,  and  the  American  Colonies  has 
brought  within  reach  of  the  general  public  a  number 
of  documents  relating  to  the  very  earliest  settlements 
in  the  New  Netherland.  By  these  later  investiga- 
tions it  now  appears  clearly  established  that,  while 
the  Dutch  were  first  in  the  field  as  explorers  and 
traders,  the  Belgian-French  were  their  predecessors 
as  actual  settlers  with  homes,  families,  cattle  and 
tilled  fields.  The  first  to  bring  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, the  first  to  plow  and  plant,  the  first  to  build 
permanent  residences  upon  the  island  of  Manhattan 
and  the  site  of  New  York  City,  were  a  company  of 
Walloons  recruited  and  enrolled  by  Jesse  De  Forest 
of  Avesnes — not  included  as  a  negligible  minority  in 
a  colony  planned  by  the  Dutch  Government,  but 
gathered  together  of  their  own  motion  and  wish,  as 
a  racial  and  religious  unit,  seeking  from  the  United 
Netherlands  only  permission  to  make  a  settlement, 
and  means  of  transportation.  It  is  of  this  Walloon 
colony,  of  its  leader,  Jesse  De  Forest,  and  of  the 
part  it  played  in  the  first  days  of  New  Amsterdam, 
that  the  present  paper  in  a  modest  way  seeks  to  treat. 

2 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 


II.  Walloons  in  General 

A.  Racial  History  and  Distribution. — The 
word  "Walloon"  is  probably  akin  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
"wealas/'  Welsh,  Foreigners;  and  to  the  German 
"welsche,"  strangers.  It  is  commonly  applied  to  the 
mediaeval  and  modern  descendants  of  Celtic  or 
Alpine  stock  who  have  tenaciously  held  for  centuries 
to  the  soil  where  Caesar  found  them.  He  describes 
them  as  the  eastern  division  of  the  Gaulish  tribes, 
the  ''fortissimi  Belgae,"  dwelling  nearest  to  the 
Germans  ''with  whom  they  continually  wage  war.*' 
Not  Cimbrian  nor  Teuton,  not  Roman  nor  Frankish, 
not  purely  Celtic;  probably  Celtic  with  an  admixture 
of  Germanic,  and  perhaps  of  Frankish  blood,  the 
Walloons  have  never  been  dislodged  from  their  an- 
cestral ground  where,  so  far  as  modern  knowledge 
goes,  they  were  well-rooted  two  thousand  years  ago. 
They  belong  to  "the  cock-pit  of  Europe" — about 
three  million  in  the  Belgian  provinces  of  Liege, 
Namur,  Brabant,  Hainault  and  Luxembourg;  about 
one  million  in  the  French  departments  of  Aisne, 
Ardennes,  Calais  and  Nord.  Since  modern  Belgium 
did  not  become  a  separate  kingdom  until  1830,  the 
terms  Belgic  or  Belgian-French,  as  applied  to  this 
Walloon  element,  are  not  political,  but  racial  or  geo- 
graphical. In  terms  of  present  national  borders,  we 
may  say  that,  roughly,  the  Walloon  territory,  at  the 
period  of  which  we  are  chiefly  speaking,  was  that 
now  included  in  southwest  Belgium  and  northeast 
France.    It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  to  what 

3 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

an  extent  this  territory  has  been  trampled  under  both 
political  and  religious  conflicts.  Kings  and  powerful 
nobles  schemed,  wrangled,  lied,  married  and  mur- 
dered for  possession  of  the  soil.  Bought  or  conquered, 
the  rich  provinces  were  harried  and  plundered, 
drained  of  blood  and  treasure.  Boundaries  cease- 
lessly shifted  between  France  and  the  Spanish  Neth- 
erlands, even  before  political  and  military  wars  were 
empoisoned  with  acute  religious  differences. 

B.  Characteristics.  —  Race  characteristics  ap- 
pear strongly  defined  and  persistent.  They  are  a 
stocky,  rather  short,  type,  of  rugged  health,  dark 
skin,  and  most  often  black  hair.  They  are  not  of  a 
stolid  temperament,  but  quick  to  love,  fight,  pray 
or  laugh.  They  appear  to  have  been  always  a  fighting 
and  a  home-loving  people — patriotic  and  warlike  (at 
all  events,  sturdy  soldiers),  deeply  religious,  and 
tenacious  of  their  liberties.  They  formerly  spoke 
Liegeois  (a  middle  French  dialect)  in  which  a  con- 
siderable literature  remains,  of  marked  peculiarities 
and  some  merit.  In  later  centuries  they  have  spoken 
ordinary,  somewhat  provincial,  modern  French. 

C.  Religion. — With  the  spread  of  the  Reforma- 
tion and  the  rise  of  the  Protestant  Netherlands, 
Spanish  persecution  became  most  bitter.  Though 
the  southern  provinces  contained  more  adherents  to 
the  elder  faith  than  the  northern  ones,  yet  the  former 
contained  many  thousands  of  Huguenots  who  finally 
had  to  choose  between  extermination  and  expatria- 
tion. Hainault,^  although  farther  from  Spain,  fared 
no  better  than  the  south. 

»Ceded  by  the  French  to  Spain  in  1559. 

4 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

D.  Emigration  Due  to  Persecution. — From  all 
these  Inquisition-ridden,  tortured  provinces  Hugue- 
nots, and  especially  Walloons,  poured  north  and  east 
to  escape  the  talons  of  Spain.  Many  reached  Eng- 
land, some  others  penetrated  into  Prussia;  the  ma- 
jority found  an  asylum  in  Holland.  There  was  no 
question  of  gathering  together  their  forces  for  a 
possible  return.  Their  beautiful  and  beloved  coun- 
try, home  of  their  stock  for  more  than  twenty  cen- 
turies, lay  open  to  the  power  of  the  tyrant.  It  is 
naturally  indefensible.  There  are  no  "coigns  of 
vantage  "  from  which  to  repel  an  intruder.  Allegiance 
to  the  Belgian  soil  has  ever  been  a  liability  rather 
than  an  asset — so  far  at  least  as  earthly  safety  goes. 

The  refugees,  while  doubtless  in  many  cases  mi- 
grating at  severe  financial  loss,  were  far  from  being 
social  derelicts.  They  paid  their  scot  wherever  they 
went.  Thankful  for  Holland's  religious  toleration, 
naturally  law-abiding,  both  industrious  and  ingen- 
ious, the  Walloons  were  made  welcome  everywhere. 

''Carrying  with  them  a  knowledge  of  the  arts,  in 
which  they  were  great  proficients,''  says  Brodhead,^ 
"they  were  distinguished  in  their  new  home  for  their 
tasteful  and  persevering  industry.  To  the  Walloons 
the  Dutch  were  probably  indebted  for  much  of  the 
repute  which  they  gained  as  a  nation  in  many 
branches  of  manufactures." 

J.  W.  De  Forest,^  also,  quotes  "another  modern 
investigator,  the  Netherlands  historian  Archer,"  as 

i"History  of  the  State  of  New  York,"  by  John  R.  Brodhead,  N.  Y.  1853.  Ch. 
V,  p.  147. 

'"The  De  Forests  of  Avesncs  and  of  New  Netherland,"  J.  W.  De  Forest,  1900. 


5 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

declaring  that  "the  whole  greatness  of  Holland 
sprang  from  her  hospitality  to  a  hundred  thousand 
exiled  Walloon  families." 

These  Belgian-French  Protestant  refugees,  not 
speaking  Dutch,  naturally  wished  to  establish  their 
own  church  services.  The  tolerant  Hollanders  saw 
no  objection  to  this.  Religious  freedom  was  the 
essence  of  the  hospitality  sought  and  granted.  The 
Walloon  Church  was  then  soon  established,  with  the 
use  of  the  French  language  and  the  Geneva  Cate- 
chism, and  to  this  day  the  strangers'  descendants  in 
Holland  so  worship. 

By  the  time  the  war  between  France  and  Spain 
closed  with  the  treaty  of  1598,  the  worst — Alva's 
unspeakable  worst — was  nearly  over  for  the  Nether- 
lands. The  half  century  preceding  had  been  one  of 
horror,  too  well  known  to  need  repetition.  The  seven 
northern  provinces  of  the  Netherlands  ^  had  declared 
their  independence  by  the  Union  of  Utrecht  in  1 579, 
after  the  heroic  and  famous  defense  of  Leyden;  and, 
while  their  great  leader,  William  the  Silent,  had 
been  assassinated  in  1584,  the  Dutch  dauntlessly 
fought  on  to  formal  recognition  of  independence 
from  Spain  in  1609.  The  ten  southern  provinces,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  crushed;  Protestantism  had 
been  practically  wiped  out.  Thoroughly  cowed,  they 
returned  to  Spanish  allegiance,  not  to  raise  a  national 
head  again  until  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century;  and  to  the  present  time  Catholicism  is  the 
prevailing  faith. 

iProtestant  Dutch. 

6 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

The  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  been 
one  of  frightful  misery  for  both  northern  and  south- 
ern provinces.  During  this  time  it  is  estimated  that 
at  least  half  a  million  Walloons  had  emigrated,  for 
the  most  part  to  Holland.  Perhaps  an  additional 
hundred  thousand  had  been  slain.  Civilization  was 
at  a  standstill. 

Strange  to  say,  while  the  little  Dutch  republic 
had  been  so  struggling  and  suffering,  with  dikes  cut, 
fields  ruined,  towns  leveled,  she  had  been  steadily 
growing  in  wealth  by  commerce  and  manufactures.' 
After  the  defeat  of  the  Armada  ^  Spain  could  no 
longer  check  her  sea  power;  the  young  nation  of  the 
United  Netherlands  speedily  became  mistress  of  the 
seas.  National  pride,  stimulated  by  victory,  made 
all  things  possible.  Hence  the  Walloon  immigrants, 
although  entering  at  a  time  of  storm  and  stress, 
were  made  welcome,  kept  busy  and  well  paid,  and 
speedily  made  to  share  in  the  rising  prosperity  of 
the  whole  country.  To  their  leaders,  indeed,  the 
chief  doubt  was  lest  they  should  become  lost  by 
assimilation  into  the  larger  element  of  the  Dutch 
about  them. 

III.  Comparison  of  the  Walloon  Colony  in 
Leyden  with  the  Contemporary  Puritan 
Colony  from  England  in  Leyden. 

A.  Previous  Experience  of  Each  Colony. — 
Most  persons,  perhaps,  are  wont  to  think  of  the 

1" Modern  History,"  by  W.  M.  West,  passim. 
*1588. 

7 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

religious  persecutions  of  this  age  as  wholly  like  to 
that  to  which  the  Walloons  were  subjected;  namely, 
the  persecution  of  Protestants  by  Catholics.  They 
do  not  realize  that  in  England  at  the  same  time,  for 
example,  there  was  a  persecution  of  "Dissenters,*' 
by  the  Established  Church,  scarcely  less  cruel  or 
unjust.  Queen  Elizabeth  seems  to  have  enjoyed  an 
undeserved  reputation  for  being  comparatively  tol- 
erant. It  is  true  that  she  used  in  oifice  talented  men 
regardless  of  their  creeds;  and  she  discouraged  public 
discussions  of  religion;  but  she  set  her  hand  to  laws 
and  acts  of  extreme  intolerance.  She  herself  said  ^ 
that  while  "she  would  suppress  the  papistical  religion 
so  that  it  should  not  grow,  she  would  root  out  Puri- 
tanism and  the  favorers  thereof."  The  persecution 
of  the  Anabaptist  refugees  from  the  continent  in 
1575,  resulting  in  the  dispersion  of  the  whole  group, 
with  the  burning  alive  of  several  at  Smithfield,  indi- 
cates her  general  attitude.  "In  1581,"  says  Camp- 
bell,^  "some  acts  were  passed  by  Parliament  which, 
aimed  primarily  at  the  Catholics,  bore  heavily  upon 
the  nonconformists."  In  1583,  the  High  Commis- 
sion Court  was  established  for  the  express  purpose 
of  harrying  the  latter,  especially  the  clergy,  who  were 
much  better  educated  than  those  of  the  Established 
Church.  Through  this  instrument,  and  by  the 
zealous  labors  of  Whitgift,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  Aylmer,  Bishop  of  London,  hounding  of  the 
Puritan  leaders  increased. 

>"The  Puritans  of  Holland,  England,  and  America,"  by  Douglass  Campbell, 
p.  490. 

*"The  Puritans  of  Holland,  England  and  America,"  by  Douglass  Campbell, 
p.  492. 

8 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

"In  nothing  did  this  Commission^  fall  behind 
Alva's  famous  Council  of  Blood,  created  fifteen  years 
before,  except  in  the  power  of  punishing  by  death; 
and  in  the  condition  of  the  English  prisons  of  that 
day,  even  this  power  was  indirectly  granted,  for  the 
jail-fever  was  as  fatal  as  the  axe  of  the  executioner. 
Of  its  origin,  the  unimpassioned  Hallam^  says,  "The 
primary  model  was  the  Inquisition  itself." 

It  should  be  understood,  of  course,  that  the  Puri- 
tans labored  long  and  patiently  in  England  to  remedy 
the  shocking  immoraHty  and  illiteracy  which  existed, 
protected  by  the  Crown,  within  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land; that  for  the  most  part  they  became  Separatists 
only  when  flung  out  neck  and  crop,  and  "Pilgrims" 
only  when  driven  into  exile  to  preserve  a  bare  mini- 
mum of  intelligent  opinion  or  personal  freedom. 
Under  such  circumstances,  at  Scrooby  in  Lincoln- 
shire, in  the  first  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
was  gathered  the  famous  group  of  Separatists  who 
shortly,  like  the  Walloons,  were  driven  to  seek  the 
peace  of  religious  toleration  under  the  friendly  flag 
of  the  Netherlands;  and  like  them,  also,  to  venture 
among  the  very  first  who  braved  the  unknown  terrors 
of  the  New  World. 

The  Separatists,  having  endured  the  severest  per- 
secutions, finally  determined  to  emigrate — the  first, 
from  London,  as  early  as  1593.  From  Scrooby,  in 
1606,  two  more  bands  of  refugees  departed,  and  in 
1608,  the  remainder,  after  being  betrayed,  plundered, 

^Campbell,  p.  494. 

»"ConstitutionaI  History,"  by  J.  H.  Hallam.  Vol.  1,  p.  204. 


9 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


imprisoned  and  scattered  in  the  effort  to  escape,* 
finally  reached  Holland.  They  were  under  the  lead- 
ership of  their  pastor,  the  Rev.  John  Robinson,  a 
man  of  great  learning,  courage,  and  breadth  of  mind, 
a  Cambridge  man  and  an  ordained  clergyman  of  the 
Church  of  England  who  remained  not  only  the  head 
of  the  Puritan  Church  of  the  Netherlands,  but  also — 
what  is  perhaps  not  so  generally  known — the  only 
pastor  of  the  Pilgrim  colony  at  Plymouth  from  their 
landing  in  1620  until  his  death  in  1625.  A  touching 
account  of  the  terrors  and  cruelties  of  the  persecution 
preceding  and  accompanying  the  flight  is  given  in 
quaint  old  language  by  Governor  Bradford  in  his 
History  "Of  Plimoth  Plantation,"  of  which  the 
original  MS.  was  a  few  years  ago  returned  to  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  by  the  British 
Government.    He  comments  also, 

"Mr.  Foxe  recordeth  how  y^  besids  those  worthy 
martirs  &  confessors  which  were  burned  in  queen 
Marys  days  &  otherwise  tormented,  many  (both 
studients  &  others)  fled  out  of  y^  land,  to  y^  number 
of  800.  And  became  severall  congregations.  At 
Wesell,2  Frankford,  Bassill,  Emden,  Markpurge, 
Strausborugh  &  Geneva  &c."  ^ 

Bradford  continues  regarding  the  exiles  from 
Scrooby^  .  .  .  "They  could  not  long  continue 
in  any  peaceable  condition,  but  were  hunted  &  per- 
secuted on  every  side,  so  as  their  former  afflictions 

i"Of  Plimoth  Plantation,"  by  Gov.  William  Bradford,  pp.  2-25. 
2Peter  Minuit  the  Walloon,  third  Governor  of  New  Amsterdam,  was  a  deacon 
in  this  refugee  church  at  Wesel. 
»"Of  Plimoth  Plantation,"  p.  6. 
^Bradford,  p.  15. 

10 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

were  but  as  flea-bitings  in  comparison  with  those 
that  now  came  upon  them.  .  .  .  Seeing  them 
selves  thus  molested,  and  that  ther  was  no  hope  of 
their  continuance  ther,  by  a  joynte  consente  they 
resolved  to  goe  into  y^  Low  Countries,  wher  they 
hearde  was  freedome  of  Religion  for  all  men/' 

The  experiences  of  this  colony  under  Robinson 
form  in  many  respects  a  close  parallel  with  those  of 
the  Walloon  refugees  of  whom  De  Forest  became 
the  leader.  Driven  by  the  crass  ignorance  and  bit- 
ter piety  of  those  in  authority,  Robinson's  Protestant 
colony  came  to  Amsterdam  in  1608,  removed  to 
Leyden  in  1609,  and  emigrated  to  America  in  1620. 
Jesse  De  Forest's  father  emigrated  to  Leyden  in 
1602,  Jesse  himself  in  161 5,  many  of  their  relatives 
and  friends  in  the  intervening  years.  In  1623  De 
Forest's  colony  of  Walloons  followed  the  example 
of  the  English  Protestants  in  adventuring  to  find  a 
permanent  home  upon  the  western  continent. 

B.  Fellowship  in  Leyden. — The  two  colonies 
must  have  had  much  in  common.  Alike  in  religion 
and  general  characteristics,  with  experiences  in  many 
ways  very  similar,  strangers  in  a  strange  land,  to- 
gether at  the  same  time  for  conscience'  sake,  finding 
much  the  same  problems  and  opportunities,  they 
were  doubtless  well  informed  of  each  other's  fortunes. 
Bradford  says,  "y^  magistrate  of  y^  citie"^  com- 
pared the  English  refugees  with  ''the  Walloons  who 
were  of  y^  French  church  in  y^  citie,"  somewhat  to 
the  disparagement  of  the  latter  as  being  more  prone 
to  quarrel  among  themselves  than  the  less  mercurial 

iLeyden.    Bradford,  p.  27. 

I  I 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

British.  Says  Mrs.  Robert  De  Forest,  ^  "  It  is  known 
that  much  cordiaHty  and  friendship  existed  between 
these  French  and  English  Protestants."  This  is  the 
more  likely  when  we  remember  that  many  thousands 
of  Walloons  in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury passed  into  England  as  well  as  into  Holland. 
According  to  Froude,  ^  the  Spanish  ambassador,  in 
1562,  reported  over  30,000  Flemish  refugees  in 
England.  In  1587  there  were  in  Norwich  alone 
nearly  5,000  Walloons,  making  a  majority  of  the 
population,  3  *'So  late  as  1645,^  when  Laud  had 
driven  great  numbers  away,  there  were  700  com- 
municants in  the  Dutch  church  at  Colchester,  500 
in  Sandwich,  and  900  in  the  Walloon  church  at 
Canterbury." 

The  material  prosperity  of  modern  England,  of 
Holland,  and  of  colonial  America  was  unquestionably 
increased  by  this  migration  of  Walloon  refugees, 
every  one  of  whom  was  a  skilled  artisan.  In  this 
they  had  the  advantage  over  the  Pilgrims,  who,  as 
Bradford  laments,  ^  "were  not  acquainted  with  trade 
nor  traffique  (by  which  y^  countrie  doth  subsiste) 
but  had  only  been  used  to  a  plaine  countrie  life  & 
y^  inocente  trade  of  husbandrey."  One  reason  why 
the  English  roused  to  reemigration  before  the  Wal- 
loons, and  in  greater  numbers,  from  that  "faire  and 
bewtifull  citie"  of  Ley  den,  was  that  the  former,  being 

i"A  Walloon  Family  in  America,"  p.  17. 

»"History  of  England,"  by  J.  A.  Froude,  Vol.  VII,  pp.270.  413. 
•Campbell,  p.  489. 
Mdem,  p.  490. 

»"0f  Plimoth  Plantation,"  p.  16. 


12 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

unaccustomed  to  the  artisan  life  of  a  city,  found  the 
confinement  detrimental  to  the  health  of  their  young 
people,  as  well  as  social  temptations  a  menace  to 
morals. 

Recent  search,  having  uncovered  so  many  new 
sources  of  value,  may  still  bring  to  light  documents 
showing  a  closer  interchange  of  ideas  between  these 
two  bodies  of  refugees,  or  between  their  leaders,  than 
we  are  at  present  justified  in  assuming.  The  dif- 
ference in  language  was  doubtless  some  bar.  De 
Forest,  while  not  a  highly  educated  man,  wrote 
French  well  and  readily.  The  important  papers 
concerning  his  expedition  are  in  his  own  handwriting, 
and  for  the  most  part  bear  his  signature  alone. 
Robinson  was  of  course  a  man  of  signal  culture, 
especially  in  a  day  when  even  high  officials  and 
ecclesiastics  were  so  illiterate  and  so  densely  ignorant. 
He  was  M.  A.  and  Fellow  of  Cambridge  University, 
a  ready  scholar  in  Latin,  Greek  and  Hebrew,  a  man 
of  native  ability  and  Hberal  learning,  considered, 
even  in  those  days  of  bitter  prejudice,  a  distinct 
loss  to  the  English  Church.  His  opponents  admitted 
him  to  be^  "the  most  learned,  polished,  and  modest 
spirit  that  ever  separated  from  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land." Presumably  he  spoke  French,  and  doubtless 
both  he  and  De  Forest,  through  long  residence  in 
Leyden,  spoke  Dutch  as  well  as  their  mother  tongue. 
The  Puritan  colony  centered  about  Robinson's  resi- 
dence (their  place  of  worship)  on  the  Klockstrasse, 
opposite  St.  Peter's  Church.  If  De  Forest's  group 

»Appleton's  Cyclopedia  of  American  Biography. 

13 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

of  colonists  had  such  a  center,  and  whether,  if  so, 
it  was  near  that  of  the  Pilgrims,  I  am  unable  to  say. 

C.  Emigration  of  Part  of  the  Separatist  Church 
UNDER  Robinson  in  Leyden  to  America  in  1620. — 
The  fourth  chapter  of  Bradford,^  "Showing  rea- 
sons &  causes  of  their  remoovall,''  gives  a  discussion 
of  political,  business  and  social  conditions  in  Leyden, 
with  the  arguments  for  and  against  emigration,  of 
which  almost  every  sentence  applies  with  equal  force 
to  Puritans  and  to  Walloons.  It  furnishes  the  basis 
for  a  fme  understanding  of  the  spirit  in  which  both 
Robinson  and  De  Forest  pursued  their  courageous 
designs  of  leading  colonies  of  their  compatriots  far 
across  the  seas  into  an  unknown  wilderness. 

(To  fearful  ones) — "  It  was  answered,  that  all  great 
and  honourable  actions  are  accompanied  with  great 
difficulties,  and  must  be  both  enterprised  and  over- 
come with  answerable  courages.  It  was  granted  y^ 
dangers  were  great,  but  not  desperate;  the  difficulties 
were  many,  but  not  invincible.  For  though  their 
were  many  of  them  likly,  yet  they  were  not  certaine; 
it  might  be  sundrie  of  y^  things  feared  might  never 
befale;  others  by  provident  care  &  y^  use  of  good 
means,  might  in  a  great  measure  be  prevented;  and 
all  of  them,  through  y^  help  of  God,  might  either  be 
borne,  or  overcome.  True  it  was,  that  such  attempts 
were  not  to  be  made  and  undertaken  without  good 
ground  &  reason;  not  rashly  or  lightly  as  many  have 
done  for  curiositie  or  hope  of  gaine,  &c.  But  their 
condition  was  not  ordinarie;  their  ends  were  good  & 

i"History  of  Plimoth  Plantation,"  pp.  29-35. 

14 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

honourable;  their  calling  lawfulle,  &  urgente;  and 
therefore  they  might  expecte  blessing  of  God  in 
their  proceeding.  Yea,  though  they  should  loose 
their  lives  in  this  action,  yet  might  they  have  com- 
forte  in  the  same,  and  their  endeavors  would  be 
honourable.  They  lived  hear  but  as  men  in  exile, 
&  in  a  poor  condition;  and  as  greate  miseries  might 
possibly  befale  them  in  this  place,  for  y^  12  years  of 
truce  were  now  out,  &  there  was  nothing  but  beating 
of  drumes,  and  preparing  for  warr,  the  events  whereof 
are  allway  uncertaine.  Ye  Spaniard  might  prove  as 
cruell  as  the  salvages  of  America,  and  y^  famine  and 
pestelence  as  sore  hear  as  ther,  &  their  libertie  less  to 
looke  out  for  remedie.  After  many  other  perticuler 
things  answered  &  aledged  on  both  sids,  it  was  fully 
concluded  by  y^  major  parte,  to  put  this  designe  in 
execution,  and  to  prosecute  it  by  the  best  means 
they  could." 

D.  Stimulus  to  Emigration  of  the  Wal- 
loons.— In  view  of  De  Forest's  Guiana  project,  and 
his  efforts  to  emigrate  to  Virginia,  it  is  of  interest  to 
note  that  the  Pilgrims  had  much  the  same  experi- 
ences. 

"Some,"  says  Bradford,  ^  "had  thoughts  &  were 
ernest  for  Guiana,  or  some  of  those  fertill  places  in 
those  hott  climats;  others  were  for  some  parts  of 
Virginia." 

The  negotiations  in  regard  to  both  expeditions — 
that  of  the  English  to  Plymouth,  and  that  of  the 

>  Bradford,  p.  34. 

15 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

Walloons  to  Manhattan — were  carried  on  at  almost 
the  same  time,  the  English  preceding  step  for  step 
by  about  three  years,  and  were  in  many  respects 
much  alike;  for  example,  both  colonies  tried  first  to 
make  the  settlement  in  Guiana,  then  did  their  best 
to  arrange  one  in  Virginia,  and  finally  decided  upon 
a  more  northern  destination.  It  is  possible  that  the 
two  bands  had  even  had  some  idea  of  making  common 
cause  in  the  New  World.  The  Pilgrim  colony  on 
the  ''Mayflower,*'  as  we  know,  was  bound  for  the 
mouth  of  the  Hudson,  but  encountering  many  delays 
and  adventures  en  route,  so  that  they  reached  the 
American  coast  only  when  winter  was  well  upon 
them,  they  were  halted  upon  the  nearer,  more 
northern  shore  of  Massachusetts  by  inclement 
weather  and  the  lateness  of  the  season.  Accounts 
of  the  Pilgrim  voyage  and  settlement,  however,  are 
legion.  The  parallel  with  the  Walloon  expedition 
will  become  apparent  in  subsequent  pages. 

'The  Pilgrim  Fathers  had  gone  to  America  under  a 
patent  from  the  Virginia  Company,"  remarks  Mrs. 
Robert  De  Forest,  ^  "and  some  of  Jesse  De  Forest's 
compatriots  had  gone  with  them.  It  was,  therefore, 
quite  natural,  all  things  considered,  that  Jesse  him- 
self should  propose  to  emigrate  with  his  followers 
under  the  same  auspices." 

At  all  events,  by  the  time  the  remnant  of  the 
Mayflower  colony  had  weathered  the  first  winter, 
he  had  gathered  together  between  fifty  and  sixty 
families,  containing  about  three  hundred  persons,  of 

»"A  Walloon  Family  in  America,"  by  Mrs.  Robert  W.  de  Forest,  p.  18. 

i6 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Protestant  Belgian-French  who  were  desirous  of 
making  the  venture.  Before  proceeding,  however, 
some  account  is  in  order  of  this  one  conspicuous 
leader  of  the  Walloons,  Jesse  De  Forest. 

IV.   Jesse  De  Forest,  Leader  of  the  Walloon 
Migration  to  New  Netherland 

A.  French  Origin  and  Early  Connections. — 
The  province  of  Hainault  has  long  been  a  land  of 
history  and  romance.  Here  dwelt  and  fought  the 
Nervii,  who  so  earned  the  respect  of  Caesar  for  their 
fighting  qualities.  Baldwin,  the  Emperor  of  Byzan- 
tium, Philippa  of  Hainault,"  the  Queen  who  sucked 
the  poison  from  her  husband's  wound,  Froissart,  the 
quaint  chronicler.  Count  Egmont  of  undying  fame — 
the  little  plot  of  ground  has  furnished  its  share  of 
notables.  Near  the  Belgian-French  frontier,  not  far 
from  Mons  of  recent  bloodshed  and  a  new  legend, 
stands — or  stood,  perhaps,  until  the  swift  destruction 
of  the  past  by  the  present — a  little  old  walled  town 
of  fewer  than  five  thousand  inhabitants — Avesnes. 
It  has  changed  hands  many  times,  belonging  now  to 
Bavaria,  now  to  Burgundy;  a  possession  in  turn  of 
Spain,  Austria,  France  of  today.  In  1477,  Louis  XI 
of  France,  planning  to  surprise  the  Netherlands  of 
Burgundy,  sent  an  army  which,  on  its  way,  by  treach- 
ery slew  nearly  all  the  people  of  the  town,  and  after 
pillage  so  burned  it  that  but  eight  dwellings,  with  a 
hospital  and  a  monastery,  remained.  All  previous 
church  and  town  records  were  destroyed  at  this 

17 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

time.  Somehow  the  town  rose  again,  for  nearly  a 
century  later  1  it  appears  worth  being  formally  ceded 
from  France  to  Spain.  During  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, some  of  the  town  records  were  used  for  wadding 
cartridges,  and  a  hundred  years  ago,  during  the  in- 
vasion of  the  Prussians,  the  explosion  of  a  magazine 
all  but  destroyed  the  town  once  more.  Hence  the 
records  are  very  fragmentary. 

The  earliest  known  are  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale  at  Paris.  Others  are  to  be  found  in  the 
archives  of  Lille,  Mons,  etc.  These  Paris  archives 
run  back  to  1488;  those  of  Avesnes,  broken  as  they 
are,  begin  in  1 529.  Hundreds  2  of  local  records,  more 
or  less  clearly  connected,  contain  the  name  of  De 
Forest,  indicating  that  the  family  had  been  long  on 
the  soil.  Presently  emerge,  with  fair  probability  of 
identification,  entries  such  as  any  self-respecting  old- 
world  community  makes  every  effort  to  keep,  of 
births  and  deaths,  baptisms  and  marriages,  for  the 
two  or  three  generations  immediately  preceding  Jesse 
De  Forest,  the  Walloon  emigrant. 

For  the  past  three  centuries,  while  America  in 
general  is  very  lax  in  such  matters,  the  records  of 
this  particular  family,  now  quite  numerous,  have 
been  fairly  well  preserved.  Actuated  frankly  by  a 
mixture  of  general  historic  interest  and  family  pride, 
several  De  Forests  of  the  present  day  have  been  at 
considerable  pains  to  search  the  old  records  available 
in  America,  France,  Belgium,  Holland  and  England 
for  any  entries  concerning  their  immigrant  ancestors. 

11559. 

2"The  De  Forests  of  Avesnes,"  by  J.  W.  De  Forest,  1900.  (Passim) 

i8 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

In  this  they  have  been  fairly  successful.  While  in 
their  published  results  many  pages  are  naturally 
devoted  to  mere  genealogical  matter  affecting  later 
generations,  the  appendices  contain  certified  copies 
of  records  from  European  archives  and  similar  source- 
material — of  primary  interest  to  the  family,  no 
doubt,  but  also  of  a  certain  impersonal  value  as 
aiding  the  general  reader  to  gain  a  more  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  circumstances  under  which  such 
important  cities  as  Albany  and  New  York  were 
founded.  The  two  books  including  this  source- 
material  are  ''The  De  Forests  of  Avesnes  and  of  New 
Netherland,"  by  J.  W.  De  Forest  (1900)  and  *'A 
Walloon  Family  in  America,"  by  Mrs.  Robert  W. 
De  Forest  (19 14).  While  they  are  informal  in  style, 
occasionally  gossipy,  careful  references  are  given  for 
all  statements  of  any  weight,  due  notice  is  given 
whenever  evidence  passes  into  speculation,  and  in 
general  the  volumes  are  free  from  raw  heraldic  claims 
or  the  like  undemocratic  pretensions. 

According  to  these  old  local  records,  Jean  de 
Forest,  father  of  Jesse  de  Forest,  married  Anne 
Maillard  in  Avesnes,  about  1570,  some  two  years 
after  William  of  Orange's  first  defeat  by  Alva.  He 
belonged  to  the  guild  of  the  wool  merchants,  as  did 
also  several  of  his  brothers.^  Jean,  the  youngest  of 
the  family,  and  less  often  mentioned  in  the  records, 
very  probably  was  going  to  and  fro  as  agent  for  the 
De  Forest  wool  firm.  Markets  must  have  been  very 
uncertain  in  this  half-century  of  fierce  strife  between 

>Two  others  were  canons  of  the  church  of  St.  Nicholas  in  Avesnes. 


19 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

Spain  and  Protestantism.  Jean  de  Forest,  the  first 
Protestant  of  the  family,  soon  found  it  necessary  to 
leave  his  home.  In  1601  he  appears  established  as 
a  merchant  in  Sedan. ^  His  family  was  then  scat- 
tered: a  son,  Melchior,  at  Lille;  another,  Gerard,  at 
Ley  den ;  a  daughter,  Anne,  with  her  mother  at  Am- 
sterdam; only  Jesse  remaining  with  his  father. 
Jesse's  marriage  presently  appears. ^ 

**i6oi.    Sunday,  23d  day  of  said  month^  at  the 

Catechism,  the  said  Sieur  du  Tilloy  blessed  the  mar- 
riage of  Jesse  des  forests,  son  of  Jean  des  forests 
merchant  residing  in  this  city,  with  marie  du  Cloux, 
daughter  of  Nicaise  du  Cloux  merchant  residing  in 
this  city.'' 

In  due  time,  at  intervals  on  the  same  register  occur 
entries  of  the  baptisms  of  the  first  five  children,  in- 
cluding Henry  or  Hendrick,^  who  was  later  one  of 
the  early  settlers  of  New  Amsterdam. 

B.  Family  Migration  to  Holland. — During 
these  years  the  family  became  re-united  in  Holland. 
In  local  records^  we  find,  "Received  member  of  the 
church  at  Leyden  by  letter  from  Beighem  op  Zoom, 
Jehan  de  Forest  and  Anne  Maillard,  his  wife.''  Next 
year  ^  they  are  received  members  at  Amsterdam  by 
letters  from  Leyden. 

''1615,  March  i.  Baptized  at  Leyden,  Jesse,  son 
of  Jesse  du  Forest  and  of  Marie  du  Clou." 

iHolland  Records.    Registers  of  the  Walloon  churches.  1601, 
^Register  of  the  Huguenot  Church  in  Sedan. 
^September. 
<March  7,  1606. 

'Holland  Records.    Register  of  the  Walloon  Church  at  Leyden.  1603. 
61604. 

20 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

"  1616,  July  ID,  Baptized  at  Leyden,  Isaac,  son  of 
Jesse  du  Forest."  ^ 

C.  Reasons  Leading  to  Emigration. — Many 
other  entries  are  at  hand,  of  birth,  marriage,  church 
membership,  concerning  Isaac  De  Forest,  his  parents 
and  brothers.  Land  transactions,  voyages,  wills, 
guardianships,  and  so  on  are  also  recorded  in  num- 
bers, sometimes  in  French,  sometimes  in  Dutch. 
Had  De  Forest  been  altogether  prosperous,  he  would 
presumably  have  remained  in  one  place  or  in  one 
occupation.  On  the  contrary,  the  records  between 
1600  and  1625  show  him  with  an  increasingly  large 
family,  shifting  from  place  to  place,  now  apparently 
traveling  buyer  or  salesman  for  the  family  firm,  again 
appearing  less  as  a  wool  merchant  than  as  a  dyer. 
In  1608  he  is  noted ^  as  a  "merchant-dyer"  upon  the 
records  of  Montcornet  in  Thierache.^  After  this  we 
lose  sight  of  him  for  some  years,  during  which  he 
may  have  had  several  children,  since  the  births  of 
five  are  previously  recorded  at  Sedan,  and  five  more, 
after  this  gap  in  the  family  records,  at  Leyden. 
Later,  also,  is  recorded  the  marriage  of  a  daughter 
not  included  in  either  group.  In  16 18  we  come 
across  a  civic  record  at  The  Hague,  which  tells  of 
his  pledging  his  very  dyery-chaldron^  because  he  is 
in  arrears  of  house-rent  to  the  amount  of  fifty  florins. 
These  circumstances  indicate  that  the  family  was  not 

iHolIand  Records.    Register  of  the  Walloon  Church  at  Leyden. 
*"De  Forests  of  Avesnes,"  p.  53. 
«An  eastern  canton  of  Picardy. 
♦"De  Forests  of  Avesnes,"  p.  56. 

21 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

prosperous,  and  may  have  furnished  sufficient  spur 
to  emigration. 

Still,  we  must  remember  that  poverty  was  no  slur 
upon  character  in  those  days,  especially  among 
Huguenot  and  Walloon  exiles.  The  very  word 
"  Beggar"  indeed,  flung  at  them  as  a  scornful  epithet, 
was  worn  as  a  proud  title.  In  1566  some  500 
Protestant  nobles  of  the  Netherlands  (later  joined 
by  many  of  lesser  rank)  having  pledged  themselves  to 
make  a  stand  against  Spanish  cruelty  and  tyranny, 
presented  a  petition  to  the  Duchess  of  Parma.  One 
of  her  advisers  spoke  contemptuously  of  "les  Gueux" 
(the  beggars).  The  acknowledgment,  ''Faithful  to 
religion  and  native  land,  even  to  the  bearing  of  the 
beggar's  wallet,"  soon  became  a  slogan  which  changed 
the  insult  to  a  distinction.  The  phrase  and  the  fact 
behind  it  became  an  inheritance  of  pride  in  the 
Protestant  Netherlands.  Hardship  often  but  breeds 
dauntlessness;  and  it  may  be  noted  that  great  ad- 
venturers have  most  often  been  men  with  broken 
fortunes  to  mend. 

V.  Efforts  of  De  Forest  to  Arrange  for  the 
Emigration  of  a  Colony  Under  Auspices 
OF  THE  British  Virginia  Company 

A.  Interview  with  Sir  Dudley  Carleton, 
British  Ambassador  to  the  Netherlands. — 
While  the  formation  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Com- 
pany had  been  under  discussion  for  a  year,  it  was 
not  yet  organized;  hence  in  July,  1621,  De  Forest 

22 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

went  to  The  Hague/  and  presenting  himself  at  the 
residence  of  the  British  Ambassador,  Sir  Dudley 
Carleton,  formally  made  request,  as  spokesman  for 
three  hundred  others,  that  an  expedition,  bearing  a 
permanent  colony  to  the  New  World,  might  be 
arranged  for  them. 

B.  Written  Transactions. — Upon  Carleton's 
suggestion  that  he  present  his  request  in  written 
form,  De  Forest  reappeared  two  days  later  with  these 
"Demands,"  clearly  and  properly  couched,  over  his 
own  signature,  and  also  a  document  known  as  "the 
round  robin."  These  two  papers,  brought  to  Carle- 
ton  upon  July  21,  were  forwarded  by  him  the  same 
day  to  Sir  George  Calvert,  then  State  Secretary. 
With  them  went  a  letter,  saying, 

"There  hath  been  with  me  of  late  a  certain  Walon 
in  the  name  of  divers  families,  men  of  all  trades  and 
occupations,  who  desire  to  goe  into  Virginia.  .  .  . 
I  required  of  him  his  demands  in  writing,  with  the 
signatures  of  such  as  were  to  bear  part  therein,  both 
of  which  I  send  your  honour  herewith." 

As  the  documents  presented  by  De  Forest  both 
bear  date  of  July  21,  while  Carleton's  letter  is  headed 
July  19,  it  would  appear  that  unless  either  had  been 
slightly  misdated,  Carleton's  letter,  in  spite  of  the 
wording,  had  been  held  two  days,  after  being  written 
on  the  day  of  his  interview  with  De  Forest,  until  the 
required  papers  were  made  ready  to  accompany  it. 
The  discrepancy,  however,  is  a  trifling  one,  and  does 
not  aflfect  the  substance  of  the  contents. 

iBrodhead,  Ch.  V.,  pp.  146,  147. 

23 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


The  petition  known  as  "The  Demands requested 
from  the  British  Virginia  Company  definite  replies 
upon  seven  points  of  inquiry,  as  follows 

1.  Defense  by  the  King,  and  freedom  of  religion; 

2.  Transportation  of  the  colonists  in  an  armed 
vessel,  and  later  freightage  of  supplies; 

3.  Choice  of  location  after  landing; 

4.  Permission  to  fortify  the  settlement,  and  to 
set  up  local  self-government; 

5.  Furnishing  of  ammunition  and  permission  to 
make  powder,  shot  and  cannon; 

6.  Sole  right  to  the  territory  within  a  radius  of 
eight  miles,  "and  whether  those  of  them  who  could 
live  as  nobles  would  be  permitted  to  style  themselves 
such'*; 

7.  Game,  fishery,  mineral  and  timber  rights. 
After  incidental  request  for  information  regarding 

the  warehouse  ordinances  of  London,  with  a  view  to 
establishing  trade  relations,  the  document  closes  with 
profiler  of  full  allegiance,  and  the  usual  formal 
courtesies. 

Accompanying  this  was  a  "round-robin"  agree- 
ment^  of  the  colonists  prepared  to  go  upon  the  pro- 
posed expedition.  It  is  18x13.5  inches  in  size. 
Within  the  small  inner  oval  are  a  few  words^  prom- 
ising that  the  signers  would  settle  in  Virginia  "under 

IN.  Y.  Colonial  Documents,  Vol.  111. 

London  Documents  I,  p.  9,  for  rather  loose  translation. 

Baird,  Vol.  1,  pp.  348-350  for  full  document  in  French. 

J.  W.  De  Forest  for  better  translation.  "A  Walloon  Family."  Vol.  11,  p.  17, 
for  facsimile.  '^Condensed. 

sFacsimiie,  Baird,  I,  p.  351:  also  "A  Walloon  Family."  Vol.  11,  p.  21. 
*Thc  language,  of  course,  is  French. 

24 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

the  conditions  set  forth  in  the  articles  which  we  have 
communicated."  Time  and  the  fold  have  blurred 
the  central  part,  but  the  close  stands  out  coolly 
enough:  "And  not  otherwise."  In  the  next  oval 
come  the  clear  signatures  ^  of  the  men — "Jesse  de 
Forest,  tincturieur";  "Mousnier  de  la  Montague, 
estudient  en  medicine,"  etc.;  while  in  the  outer  oval, 
opposite  each  man's  name,  appears  his  family  con- 
dition— "homme  a  marier,"  perhaps,  or  "fme  dix 
enfans,"  as  the  case  might  be. 

These  two  papers,  presented  to  Carleton  within 
forty-eight  hours,  apparently  show  De  Forest  to  have 
been  both  business-like,  and  eager  to  be  gone.  In  a 
fortnight  or  so  came  the  categorical  reply  from  the 
Virginia  Company^  through  the  "Rt.  Ho'ble  Sr 
George  Calvert,"  in  substance  as  follows: 

1.  "If  it  stand  with  his  Ma'ties  gratious  favour, 
they  do  not  conceive  it  any  inconvenience  at  present 
to  suffer  sixtie  families  of  Walloones  and  ffrenchmen 
not  exceeding  the  number  of  300  persons  to  goe  and 
inhabite  in  Virginia.  .  .  .  the  said  persons  tak- 
ing oath  to  .  .  .  bee  conformable  to  .  .  . 
the  Churche  of  England. 

2.  They  esteeme  it  so  Royall  a  favour  in  his 
Ma'tie  and  so  singular  a  benefitt  to  the  said  Walloons 
and  ffrenchmen  to  bee  admitted  to  live  in  that  fruit- 
full  land  under  ...  so  mightie  and  pious  a 
Monarch  as  his  Ma'tie  is  that  they  ought  not  to 
expect  of  his  sacred  Ma'tie  any  ayde  of  shipping  or 

iQf  fifty-six,  only  three  made  their  marks. 
2N.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  Vol.  III.    London  Doc.  I. 


25 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

other  chargeable  favour  .  .  .  only  in  point  of 
advise  and  Councell." 

"  3,  4,  5,  6,  7.  Articles.  They  conceive  that  for 
the  prosperity  and  principally  the  securing  of  the 
plantacion  in  His  Ma'ties  obedience  it  is  not  expe- 
dient that  the  sayd  ffamilies  should  bee  sett  downe 
in  one  gross  bodie''  .  .  .  but,  in  short,  be  thor- 
oughly broken  up  and  scattered  among  "the  naturall 
Englishe;  and  this  course  they  out  of  their  experience 
do  conceive  likely  to  prove  better  and  more  com- 
fortable to  the  sayd  Walloons  and  ffrenchmen  than 
that  other  w'ch  they  desire." 

C.  Result  on  Plans  of  the  Walloons. — 
Whether  "Jesse  de  Forest,  tincturieur,"  mingled  any 
other  emotion  with  the  disappointment  in  which  he 
must  have  received  "so  Royall  a  favour"  is  not 
recorded.  He  made  no  further  effort  to  gain  the  ear 
of  "so  mightie  and  pious  a  Monarch,"  but  for  eight 
months  quietly  perfected  other  plans. 

VI.   Efforts  of  De  Forest  to  Arrange  for  the 
Emigration  of  a  Colony  under 
Dutch  Auspices 

A.  Petition  to  the  States  of  Holland  and 
West  Friesland. — Seeing  that  the  organization  of 
the  West  India  Company  was  proceeding  with  true 
Dutch  deliberation,  the  undaunted  De  Forest  in 
April,  1622,  took  his  petition  to  the  provincial  legis- 
lature called  "The  States  of  Holland  and  West 
Friesland,"  using  in  his  request  the  term  "West 

26 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Indies/'  which  then  included  the  whole  eastern  coast 
of  North  and  South  America.  On  being  consulted, 
the  Directors  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company ' 
reported  briefly  in  favor  of  promoting  the  plan.  As 
no  action  followed,  De  Forest  four  months  later  re- 
newed his  efforts,  turning  now  to  the  States  General.  * 
The  matter  was  referred  back  to  the  States  of 
Holland  and  West  Friesland,^  which  formally  author- 
ized* "the  said  Jesse  des  Forest"  to  inscribe  and 
enroll  for  the  colonies  all  families  having  the  qualifi- 
cations requisite,"  and  "to  furnish  a  report  thereof 
to  the  Lords  Gentlemen."  The  outcome  of  this  was 
"The  Guiana  Expedition." 

VII.    De  Forest's  Expedition  to  Guiana  under 
Dutch  West  India  Company 

A.  General  Stage  of  Colonization  in  South 
America. — In  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, Holland,  being  freed  from  Spanish  oppression, 
had  rapidly  risen  to  sea-power  and  to  schemes  of 
wide  colonial  expansion.  Admiral  Willekens,  with 
one  great  fleet,  was  to  take  Brazil  from  Spain  by 
sudden  attack.  Another  commander,  with  an 
equally  large  squadron  of  war-ships,  was  to  support 
Willekens  by  keeping  the  Atlantic  swept  clean  of  the 
Spanish.  A  third  fleet  was  to  take  possession  of  the 
Congo  and  Angola  coasts,  in  order  to  supply  gold 
and  slaves.    Atlantic  settlements  north  of  the  Poto- 

»Royal  Archives,  The  Hague,  Holland. 

*The  national  legislative  body  of  the  United  Netherlands. 

»N.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  British  Doc.  from  State  Archives  at  The  Hague. 

«Aug.  27,  1622. 

27 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

mac  were  more  or  less  under  consideration,  since 
Dutch  explorers  had  now  for  some  years  led  the  way. 
The  organization  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company, 
as  its  name  implies,  was  leading  to  large  plans  for 
trade  and  colonization  in  that  quarter  of  the  globe, 
notably  among  the  Caribbean  Islands  and  along  the 
northern  coast  of  South  America  between  the  Gulf 
of  Maracaibo  and  the  frontier  of  Brazil.  The  latter 
region  was  called  interchangeably  "Guiana"  and 
"The  Wild  Coast"  by  writers  of  this  time.  All  of 
these  projects  were  upon  a  scale  to  command  respect. 
Willekens*  expedition, ^  for  example,  was  carried  by 
twenty-three  ships  and  three  clipper  yachts,  defended 
in  transit  by  five  hundred  cannon;  and  consisted  of 
sixteen  hundred  sailors,  and  seventeen  hundred  sol- 
diers, besides  civilian  colonists.  It  has  been  thought 
by  some  that  De  Forest's  band  were  of  these  last, 
but  later-found  sources  show  clearly  that  he  left  in 
the  previous  June. 

B.  Sailing  Routes  to  the  New  World. — Before 
going  further,  it  may  be  well  to  recall  two  facts, 
perfectly  well  known,  but  liable  to  be  overlooked 
since  the  same  conditions  no  longer  prevail.  The 
first  is  that  the  present  lanes  of  travel  on  the  North 
Atlantic  were  then  unknown.  Vessels  from  Holland, 
bound  for  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson,  slipped  down 
the  west  coast  of  Africa,  past  the  mouth  of  the 
Congo,  across  the  narrowest  part  of  the  Atlantic  to 
perhaps  the  mouth  of  the  Wyapoko  on  the  frontier 
between  Brazil  and  Guiana;  then  northward  among 

iWasscnacr,  passim. 

28 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

the  West  Indies  and  on  up  the  coast  of  the  present 
United  States.  For  the  return  voyage,  explains 
Wassenaer,  **on  leaving  the  lower  river/  you  lay 
your  course  for  the  west  wind,  and,  having  got  it,  to 
the  Bermudas,  whence  homeward  by  the  current." 
"The  Wild  Coast" — say  the  present  Dutch  Guiana — 
for  a  Hollander  was  as  much  on  the  way  to  New 
York  as  Buffalo,  for  a  Chicago  man,  is  on  the  way 
to  Boston.  Vessels  clearing  the  Hook  of  Holland, 
one  bound  for  Manhattan  and  the  other  for  Mara- 
caibo,  were  strictly  in  company. 

The  other  point  is  that  South  America  has  always 
seemed  to  Europe  of  more  importance  than  the  easy 
egotism  of  "the  States"  reaHzes.  What  is  true  even 
today,  with  the  vast  wealth  and  the  dense  popula- 
tion centering  about  the  island  of  Manhattan,  was 
a  hundred  times  more  true  in  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  settlement  of  New  York 
may  now  seem  to  us  a  matter  of  some  importance; 
it  was  then  a  very  negligible  affair,  to  both  English 
and  Dutch,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  delays  and  diffi- 
culties encountered  by  Jesse  de  Forest  in  his  ceaseless 
endeavors  to  get  per^nission  and  transportation  for 
hundreds  of  desirable  colonists  already  recruited  and 
enrolled.  Holland  paid  scant  heed  to  the  proposition 
of  making  a  settlement  upon  the  River  of  the  Moon, 
whence,  at  most,  she  expected  to  draw  a  few  furs 
and  a  little  tobacco.  It  was  not  a  North  Atlantic 
Company  the  Dutch  were  organizing,  but  one  for 
the  West  Indies.    From  South  America  and  the 


iThe  mouth  of  the  Hudson. 

29 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

Caribbean  Islands,  already  exploited  by  Spain,  they 
looked  for  coffee  and  spices,  dye-woods,  gold,  jewels, 
furniture-woods.  Less  was  to  be  feared  here  from 
either  climate  or  natives.  Manhattan  was  the  little- 
known,  little-visited  end  of  the  "spur  track"  far 
beyond  the  "main-traveled  road"  leading  to  the 
West  Indies.  At  a  time  when  the  interest  of  many 
influential  Hollanders  was  centered  upon  "The  Wild 
Coast,"  and  when,  as  previously  noted,  many  of  the 
Puritan  colony  in  Leyden — "and  none  of  the  mean- 
est"— argued  strongly  in  favor  of  emigrating  to 
Guiana  as  being  a  far  more  promising  place  for  a 
colony  than  New  Netherland  or  New  England,  it 
need  be  matter  of  little  surprise  when  we  find  Jesse 
De  Forest  organizing  at  the  same  time  two  colonies, 
one  for  Guiana,  the  other  for  New  Netherland, 
launching  them  ten  weeks  apart,  and  himself  accom- 
panying to  Guiana  the  first  of  these. 

C.  Wassenaer's  "Historical  Account."  —  As 
authority  for  a  discussion  of  this  Guiana  enterprise, 
two  reliable  sources  have  long  been  available,  and  a 
third  has  very  recently  been  brought  to  light.  The 
first  is  the  history  of  "The  New  World,  or  Descrip- 
tion of  the  West  Indies,"  by  John  De  Laet,  one  of 
the  leading  directors  of  the  West  India  Company. 
Brodhead  mentions  this  ^  as  being  published  in  Leyden 
in  1625,  and  as  having  been  made  up  from  "various 
manuscript  journals^  of  different  captains  and  pilots," 
including  Hendrik  Hudson's  private  journal,  and 

iBrodhead,  Ch.  V.,  p.  157. 
^Mentioned  definitely  as  used. 

30 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

also,  apparently,  the  original  reports  of  Block,  Mey 
and  Christiansen.  Brodhead  notes  that  "from  this 
circumstance  its  historical  authority  is  nearly  equal 
to  that  of  an  original  record,"  and  continues  ^ :  "  Until 
the  recent  reference  to  the  earlier  'Historical  Rela- 
tion' of  Wassenaer,  which  contains  a  general  state- 
ment of  interesting  events  in  Europe  and  America 
from  162 1  to  1632,2  the  work  of  De  Laet  was  thought 
to  contain  the  first  published  account  of  the  Dutch 
province.  Its  authority  is  deservedly  very  high — 
and  had  English  and  American  writers  consulted  its 
accurate  pages,  less  injustice  would  perhaps  have 
been  done  to  the  Hollanders.  .  .  — and,  inci- 
dentally, to  the  little  band  of  Walloons  who  as 
colonists  preceded  the  Dutch. 

Another  of  these  sources  is  the  "  Historisches  Ver- 
hael"  of  Wassenaer,  mentioned  above.  Brodhead 
was  the  first  to  find^  a  complete  copy,  and  to  use  it 
as  a  historical  authority.  A  good  part  of  it,  in  trans- 
lation, is  to  be  found  in  early  volumes  of  the  New 
York  Historical  Documents*  and  in  the  Proceedings 
of  the  New  York  Historical  Society.^ 

D.  The  Journal  of  Jesse  de  Forest. — A  third 
source,  and  in  this  connection  an  even  more  impor- 
tant one,  is  a  very  unusual  manuscript  journal  which 
has  been  lying  unnoted  in  the  British  Museum  for 
many  years,  being  published  for  the  first  time  ^  in 

iP.  157. 

*Wassenaer's  own  sub-title. 
*ln  London. 
«Vol.  Ill,  p.  397. 
SYear  1848,  p.  215. 

^Either  in  the  original  French  or  in  translation. 

31 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

1914.  It  is  listed  as  Sloane  MS.  179  b,  having  been 
among  the  first  of  similar  MSS.  collected  by  Sir  Hans 
Sloane,  founder  of  the  Museum.  Its  full  title ^  is, 
"Journal  du  voyage  faict  par  les  peres  de  families 
envoyes  par  Mes  les  Directeurs  de  la  Compagnee 
des  Indes  Occidentals  pour  visiter  la  coste  de 
Gujane.*'  It  is  commonly  called  "Jesse  De  Forest's 
Journal,"  though  certainly  part  of  it,  and  possibly  all, 
is  written  by  another  hand  than  his.  It  contains  a 
complete  account  of  the  expedition  of  which  De 
Forest  was  "our  Captain,"  to  its  finish.  The  nar- 
rative is  in  itself  readably  interesting,  with  ten 
beautifully  colored  maps,  as  many  careful  descrip- 
tions of  places,  and  numerous  sketches — of  the  high- 
built  native  houses  along  the  river  lowlands,  for 
example. 

During  the  dispute  over  the  boundary  line  between 
British  Guiana  and  Venezuela, ^  the  British  Govern- 
ment published  extracts  from  this  MS.  to  prove  that 
a  Dutch  colony  had  been  established  on  the  Esse- 
quibo  River  in  British  Guiana  before  1624.  This 
argument  was  based  upon  this  settlement  of  the 
peres  de  families  ^  headed  by  De  Forest.  It  was  also 
noted  by  the  Rev.  George  Edmundson,  who  dis- 
covered it  in  the  course  of  gathering  data  for  articles 
on  Guiana;^  and  finally  published  in  full  in  "A 
Walloon  Family." 

iBoth  original  and  translation  are  given  in  Mrs.  Robert  W.  De  Forest's  "A 
Walloon  Family  in  America,"  Vol.  II,  pp.  188-278  (1914). 
2Settled  in  1899. 
3So  quoted  by  the  Government. 

^Articles  on  Guiana,  English  Historical  Review.  Oct.,  1901;  Oct.,  1903; 
Jan.,  1904. 

32 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

E.  "Les  Peres  de  Familles." — For  two  years, 
as  we  have  seen,  Jesse  De  Forest,  with  his  fixed  idea, 
had  been  seeking  the  chance  to  emigrate.  The  West 
India  Company  was  finally  organized;^  and  within 
a  fortnight  2  the  impatient  Walloon,  in  the  ship 
"  Pigeon,"  left  Leyden  on  his  way  to  the  New  World. 

But  as  their  Excellencies  the  said  Directors  thought 
it  better  before  carrying  over  the  above  mentioned 
families,  to  send  a  certaine  number  of  the  heads  of 
families  with  the  said  Jesse  des  forests  to  inspect  the 
region  and  themselves  select  their  place  of  abode, 
there  were  chosen  for  this  purpose  Louis  le  Maire, 
Bartheleme  Digan,  Anthoine  Descendre,  Anthoine 
Beaumont,  Jehan  Godebon,  Abraham  Douillers, 
Dominique  Masure,  the  brothers  Jehan  and  Gilles 
Daynes,  and  Jehan  Mousnier  de  la  Montague,  over 
whom  on  landing  the  said  Jesse  des  forest  was  to 
have  command."  ^ 

Four  of  these  men  were  among  those  who  had 
signed  the  Round  Robin  two  years  before — "Jesse 
de  Forest,  tincturieur";  "Anthoine  Descendre, 
laboureur";  "  Barthelemy  Digand,  scyeur  de  bois"; 
and  "Jehan  Mousnier  Montague,  estudient  en  med- 
ecine."  The  last  of  these,  though  still  "homme  a 
marier,"^  we  find  stoutly  enrolled  among  the  "fathers 
of  families."  The  fact  that  later,  on  returning  to 
Leyden,  he  married  De  Forest's  daughter  Rachel, 
may  indicate  an  already  altered  footing  among  the 

ijune  21,  1623. 

^Saturday,  July  1,  1623. 

sSloane  MS.  179  b,  p.  1. 

*"A  man  for  marriage" — a  bachelor. 


33 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


band.  In  the  Journal,  "our  Captain  always  means 
De  Forest";  "Our  Master''  refers  to  the  commander 
of  the  "Pigeon,"  one  Pieter  Fredericsz  of  Harlem. 

F.  Companion  Voyage  of  "The  Mackerel" 
AND  "The  Pigeon"  from  Leyden  to  the  New 
World. — Another  yacht  of  about  the  same  size, 
"The  Mackerel,"  sailed  just  before  "The  Pigeon." 
The  ships  expected  to  keep  company  as  far  as  "the 
Amazons";  from  there  "The  Mackerel"  was  to  go 
on  to  New  Netherland.  Both  vessels  planned  to 
coast  along  under  protection  of  some  slave  ships 
headed  for  the  Guinea  coast;  but  slight  accidents  to 
"The  Mackerel's"  mast  first  lost  the  opportunity 
of  this  protection,  and  presently  made  it  necessary 
to  anchor  in  the  Downs  ^  for  further  protection. 

The  "Masters"  of  both  vessels  seem  to  have  been 
in  no  hurry.  Supper  parties,  fights,  a  wedding,  de- 
sertions, and  casual  piracies  occupied  two  months 
before  even  Cape  Finisterre  was  reached.  Fredericsz 
having  halted  an  English  ship  returning  from  New- 
foundland, and  having  robbed  the  sailors'  chests  of 
all  their  clothing,  De  Forest  made  him  return  every 
stitch;  and  then,  supported  by  the  pilot,  demanded 
that  he  should  leave  off  "skylarking"  by  the  way, 
and  proceed  more  directly.  At  Madeira,  in  mid 
September,  the  little  ships  parted  company,  "The 
Mackerel"  then  heading  for  New  Netherland.  The 
latter  vessel  seems  also  to  have  spent  some  time  in 

iHere  they  had  an  amusing  and  stirring  adventure  with  one  Pieter  Jansz  of 
Flushing,  whom  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  had  met  in  Cayenne  in  1617,  and  said  of  him 
that  he  "had  traded  that  place  about  a  dussen  years."  Other  of  Jansz's  tricks 
appear  later  in  the  Journal. 

34 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

the  popular  sport  of  the  high  seas.  Wassenaer  re- 
marks/ 

"The  yacht  'Maeckereer  sailed  out  last  year  1623 
on  the  1 6th  of  June  and  arrived  yonder  ^  on  the  12th 
of  December.  That  was  indeed  somewhat  late,  but 
it  wasted  time  in  the  salvage  islands  to  catch  a  fish  (a 
Spanish  prize),  and  did  not  catch  it,  so  ran  the  luck." 

On  October  i6th,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Amazon, 
"The  Pigeon"  again  met  Pieter  Jansz,  and  together 
they  sailed  in.  "The  Pigeon"  spent  about  six  weeks 
along  the  river,  exploring  and  trading.  She  found 
it  already  crowded.  Six  English  and  Irish  colonies 
were  even  then  established,  though  under  warning  of 
frequent  and  imminent  trouble  from  both  the  Spanish 
and  the  natives.  On  December  4th,  "The  Pigeon" 
was  back  at  the  North  Cape,  headed  for  the  Wyapoko 
River.  ^  It  was  during  this  leisurely  progress  that 
many  of  the  fme  maps  and  sketches  in  the  "Journal" 
were  made.  After  exploring  the  Wyapoko  for  some 
ten  days,  the  "peres  de  families"  finally  ^  found  a 
place  to  their  liking. 

G.  The  Settlement  Along  the  Wyapoko  on 
THE  Wild  Coast. — Here  occurred  a  surprise  and 
disappointment,  for  the  Master  of  "The  Pigeon," 
Pietersz,  then  informed  them  that  his  orders  from 
the  Directors  of  the  West  India  Company  were  to 
leave  there  all  of  them  except  two  whom  he  would 

lUnder  date  of  April,  1624. 
*In  New  Netherland. 

'Now  called  the  Oyapok — the  present  boundary  between  French  Guiana  and 
northern  Brazil. 
♦Dec.  27. 


35 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


allow  to  return  with  him.  This  seemed  to  them 
unreasonable — that  they  had  not  been  allowed  to 
bring  their  families,  nor  to  know  the  circumstances 
before  leaving  Holland,  that  they  might  make 
arrangements;  nor  were  they  now  permitted  to 
fetch  them.    As  the  Journal  says, 

"They  began  in  divers  ways  to  excuse  themselves. 
Our  Captain,  seeing  this,  declared  to  the  Master 
that  he  was  ready  to  remain  if  they  would  give  him 
in  place  of  the  heads  of  families  who  wished  to 
return,  the  same  number  of  sailors.  This  was 
allowed  him  so  that  there  remained  with  our  said 
Captain,  Louis  le  Maire  and  I  ^  from  among  the 
families,  our  Gunner,  four  sailors  and  the  Surgeon's 
mate — nine  persons  in  all."  ^ 

The  entries  next  following  are  very  brief:' 

"On  Thursday  the  28th  they  prepared  everything 
which  they  were  willing  to  give  us,  which  was 
(illegible)  of  Coucal,'^  axes,  knives,  a  small  pierrier,^ 
with  our  Cheloupe."® 

"On  Friday  the  29th  we  left  to  go  to  Commaribo." ' 

"On  Saturday  the  30th  we  arrived  at  the  said 
Commaribo." 

"The  first  day  of  the  year  1624  our  ship  left  to 
return  to  Holland." 

These  "heads  of  families"  seem  to  have  been  men 

'Almost  certainly  La  Montagne. 

sjournal,  1623,  Dec.  27. 

'No  omissions. 

*Cocoa,  presumably. 

6A  cannon  for  throwing  stones;  a  saker. 

6"Shallop";  ship's  pinnace. 

safer,  higher  spot  across  the  river. 

36 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

of  resolution  and  self-reliance.  There  is  no  further 
expression  of  surprise,  annoyance,  or  sense  of  in- 
justice. A  letter  1  which  was  written  the  last  day  of 
December,  1623,  to  be  carried  back  to  Leyden  by 
"The  Pigeon,"  shows  excellent  courage  and  spirits. 
It  begins, 

"Although  the  letter  from  our  Captain  ^  suffices  to 
inform  you  both  of  the  success  of  our  voyage  and  the 
excellence  of  this  region  where  we  live,  1  must  not 
neglect  to  fulfill  the  promise  which  I  made  at  our 
departure.  Our  voyage  was  very  happily  concluded 
.  .  .  we  found  very  friendly  natives  here,  who 
treated  us  well;  the  streams  are  convenient  and  the 
land  overflows  with  everything  that  is  needed  to 
support  human  life:  good  bread  and  fine  fish  .  .  . 
the  bread  is  superior  to  the  best  that  is  to  be  found 
in  Holland.  .  .  .  Tree  fruits  have  a  much  finer 
flavor  than  in  the  Netherlands.  .  .  .  We  expect 
here  the  families  from  Holland ^  .  .  and  con- 
tinues with  various  items  of  intelligent  interest. 

The  Journal  continues  with  frequent  entries. 
De  Forest  seems  to  have  been  an  indefatigable 
explorer  and  experimenter.  Being  by  trade  a  dyer, 
he  was  constantly  on  the  watch  for  dyewoods  and 
suitable  places  for  dyeing  cotton.  He  collected 
mineral  specimens,  bought  tobacco  fields,  laid  off 
sites  for  towns  and  fortifications,  made  long  excur- 
sions, and  took  many  notes.    He  was  successful  in 

>Given  in  full  by  Wassenaer. 
^Not  given  by  Wassenaer. 

^Wassenaer  adds,  "The  families  whom  they  expect  are  people  going  thither 
from  Leyden." 


37 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

making  friends  with  the  natives  and  in  preserving 
the  peace  even  between  hostile  tribes.  One  incident 
is  given  at  some  length,  showing  considerable 
courage,  tact,  and  leadership  on  the  part  of  "our 
Captain."  A  large  party  of  Caribs  had  come  on  a 
visit  to  the  Yaos,  the  tribe  among  which  De  Forest 
and  his  little  party  were  living  on  amicable  terms. 
The  next  day  appeared,  in  canoes,  a  third  tribe,  the 
Aricoures,  in  deadly  pursuit  of  the  Caribs.  The 
clash  was  imminent  when  "as  they  were  preparing 
to  fight,  peace  was  made  between  them  by  the 
intervention  of  our  Captain."  The  ceremony 
ingeniously  suggested  by  him  is  described  to  the 
point  at  which, 

"This  done,  the  Caribs,  throwing  down  their  arms, 
rushed  into  the  canoes  of  the  others  and  embraced 
them.  On  the  occasion  of  this  peace  the  Yaos  enter- 
tained them  together  for  eight  days;  peace  having 
never  been  known  between  them  before." 

For  a  man  who  had  been  in  the  region  less  than 
three  months,  without  previous  knowledge  of  the 
native  language  or  customs,  this  seems  to  indicate  a 
certain  force  of  character. 

Within  ten  days  of  De  Forest's  arrival,  he  had 
bought  "a  field  in  which  to  grow  tobacco,  which 
cost  us  four  axes";  and  in  the  course  of  the  next 
three  months  had  laid  out  fields  of  sugar  and  cotton, 
chosen  the  sites  for  their  fortified  town  and  their 
dye-works,  and  collected  the  native  products  needed 
for  this  industry.  He  appears  to  have  recognized  on 
sight  the  small  Oreillan  tree  from  the  seeds  of  which 

38 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

the  valuable  dye  called  ''arnotto"  or  "bastard 
scarlet''  was  made.  One  of  the  most  valuable  pro- 
ducts collected  for  trade  was  the  ''letter-wood'*  or 
"leopard-wood."  This  was  of  a  rich  dark  brown 
color  with  odd  markings  resembling  letters,  in  black. 
It  was  hard  as  ebony  and  heavier  than  teak,  weighing 
eighty  pounds  to  the  cubic  foot;  and  fetched  from 
30  to  40  pounds  a  ton.  The  colonists  from  the  first 
speak  with  vivid  interest  of  going  "higher  up  in  the 
country,  along  this  river,  where  no  Christian  has 
ever  been  ...  in  the  hope  of  finding  something 
curious."  One  entry  of  the  Journal  reads,  "On  the 
27th  of  September  our  Captain  was  at  Cayenne  to 
see  the  Caribs,  who  receive  him  kindly." 

H.  The  Death  of  De  Forest. — Eight  months 
had  elapsed  since  the  sailing  of  "The  Pigeon,"  but 
no  returning  ship  had  brought  the  colonists'  families. 
In  the  midst  of  their  hopeful  activities,  misfortune 
suddenly  befell  them.  On  October  13,  while  on  an 
expedition  by  canoe,  De  Forest  suffered  a  severe 
sunstroke,  and  was  brought  home  unconscious,  with 
a  high  fever.   The  Journal  ^  continues, 

"On  the  15th  of  October,  by  the  advice  of  those 
who  had  lived  in  this  country  before  us,  we  had  him 
bled,  which  gave  him  relief;  but  being  impatient  of 
keeping  quiet,  he  wished  to  go  on  the  sea  again, 
returning  from  which  he  again  had  a  sunstroke, 
which  redoubled  his  fever." 

"On  the  22nd  of  October  our  said  Captain  died, 
much  regretted  by  the  Christians  and  Indians,  who 

»La  Montagne  writing. 


39 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

had  taken  a  great  liking  to  him.  This  day  we 
carried  him  to  be  buried  as  honorably  as  was  possible 
for  us,  accompanying  the  body  with  our  arms,  which 
we  each  discharged  three  times  over  his  grave,  and 
our  cannon  as  well." 

Here  then,  under  an  alien  sky,  in  the  full  vigor  of 
middle  life,  Jesse  De  Forest  met  the  sudden  death, 
found  the  lonely  grave,  which  are  the  lot  of  most 
pioneer  adventurers.  Like  many  another,  also,  the 
lasting  influence  of  a  life  so  casually  cut  short  upon 
a  distant  shore,  is  to  be  measured  only  in  the  light 
of  later  years. 

1.  The  Colonists'  Return  to  Holland. — With 
De  Forest  fell  the  hopes  of  the  colony  for  which  he 
had  so  eagerly  planned  and  petitioned  and  waited. 
The  West  India  Company  apparently  made  no  effort 
to  fulfill  its  promise  of  sending  out  the  families.  Of 
the  original  *'peres  de  families,''  only  Le  Maire  and 
La  Montagne  remained,  with  the  few  sailors  left  to 
reenforce  them.  "Seeing  that  the  ships  did  not 
come  as  they  had  promised  us  and  that  our  stores 
were  giving  out,"  the  survivors  decided  that  while 
something  still  was  left,  they  "ought  to  try  to  build 
some  sort  of  craft  with  which  they  could  reach  the 
Caribbean  Islands."  At  this,  with  insufficient  tools, 
they  toiled  most  of  the  time  until  the  23rd  of  May, 
when  they  were  surprised  by  the  arrival  of  a  boat 
from  the  "Flying  Dragon,"  commanded  by  Gelyn 
van  Stapels  of  Flushing,  who  had  been  with  Admiral 
Lucifer  in  the  valley  of  "  the  Amazons."  He  reported 
to  the  little  band  that  he  had  been  commissioned  by 

40 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

the  Directors  of  the  West  India  Company  in  the 
Zeeland  Chamber  to  take  them  home  with  him;  and 
nothing  loath,  they  went  aboard.  The  voyage  home 
was  a  leisurely  one,  but  at  length,  on  Nov.  i6,  1625, 
the  survivors  "arrived  at  Flushing,  for  which  God 
be  praised."  ^ 

VIII.    De  Forest's  Contemporary  Walloon 
Colony  for  the  Hudson  River 

A.  The  "Nieuwe  Nederlandt,"  Skipper  Cor- 
nelis  iVIey;  Date  of  Voyage. — Meanwhile,  what 
of  Jesse  De  Forest's  other  Walloon  colony,  destined 
for  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson?  A  number  of  careful 
writers  2  have  stated  on  what  seemed  then  good 
authority  that  the  "Nieuwe  Nederlandt"  under 
Cornelis  Mey  left  Holland  for  the  western  shores  in 
March  of  1623.  This  would  have  been  before  De 
Forest  and  La  Montague  left  for  Guiana.  Prior  to 
the  discovery  of  "Sloane  MS.  179  b,"  it  was  thought 
by  some  that  De  Forest  went  to  the  New  World  on 
the  expedition  bound  for  the  Hudson  instead  of  that 
for  Guiana.  Both  these  suppositions  are  now  known 
to  be  erroneous.  Even  O'Callaghan,  usually  reputed 
careful,  though  he  found  the  date  1624,  altered  it  as 
"an  error,"  to  correspond  with  some  statements 
made  by  Dutch  authorities — as,  for  example,  that 
contained  in  a  memoir^  drawn  up  by  the  West  India 
Company  in  1641,  which  says  that  "in  and  since 

'  riie  closing  phrase  of  the  Journal. 

■^See  list  of  authorities  in  J.  W.  De  Forest,  Vol.  II,  pp.  77-79. 
3N.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  I,  p.  564;  II,  p.  153. 


41 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

1623  four  forts  were  built  in  the  New  Netherlands, 
to-wit :  Amsterdam  .  ..."  Others  have  placed 
undue  reliance  in  the  deposition  of  Caterina  Tricot, 
taken  when  she  was  past  eighty,  when  she  had  for- 
gotten both  the  name  of  the  ship  and  that  of  the 
captain.  Governor  Stuyvesant  claims  the  date  as 
1623.  So  also  does  a  Report  ^  of  the  Board  of 
Accounts  of  New  Netherland,"  dated  1624,  which 
declares,  "  In  the  years  1622  and  1623  the  West  India 
Company  took  possession    .    .    .  etc." 

The  weight  of  recent  authority,  however,  seems 
wholly  in  favor  of  the  year  1624  as  the  date  of  the 
earliest  settlement.  The  contemporary  Wassenaer, 
indeed,  whose  narrative  is  both  careful  and  con- 
sistent, seems  to  have  been  overlooked  in  this  dis- 
cussion. Brodhead,  if  accepted  as  authority  by 
later  writers — as  in  most  respects  he  deserves — has 
doubtless  misled  the  superficial.  While  familiar  with 
Wassenaer,  and  indeed  quoting  him  in  this  very 
detail,  he  omits  the  date  given  by  Wassenaer  as  not 
in  accordance  with  the  year  1623  on  which  he — 
Brodhead — had  previously  settled.  He  says^  "There 
is  a  slight  discrepancy  between  Trico's  testimony 
and  Wassenaer's  account,"  but  does  not  note  or  dis- 
cuss the  difference  in  dates.  However,  the  slow  or 
partial  acceptance  of  an  attempt  to  reform  the 
calendar,  about  this  time,  leaves  many  dates  of  the 
early  seventeenth  century  somewhat  in  doubt,  only 
to  be  patiently  verified.  In  thousands  of  records, 
with  a  fine  impartiality,  the  date  has  been  recorded 

»N.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  Ill,  pp.  31-32. 
*Brodhead,  pp.  150.  151,  and  note. 

42 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

1623-4,  without  further  comment.  Wassenaer,  under 
date  of  1624,  writes, 

"The  West  India  Company  .  .  .  equipped 
in  the  spring  a  vessel  of  130  lasts,  called  the  Niew 
Nederlandt,  whereof  Cornelis  Jacobsz  Mey  of  Hoorn 
was  skipper,  with  a  company  of  30  families,  most 
Walloons,  to  plant  a  colony  there.  They  sailed  in 
the  beginning  of  March,  and  directing  their  course 
by  the  Canary  Islands,  steered  toward  the  Wild 
Coast,  and  gained  the  wind  which  luckily  (took?) 
them  in  the  beginning  of  May  into  the  river  called 
first  Rio  De  Moniagnes,  now  the  river  Mauritius,^ 
lying  in  40^^  degrees." 

Brodhead's  account  of  what  followed  appears 
substantially  correct.  The  yacht  Mackerel,"  ^ 
having  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  "pretty 
late"  in  the  preceding  December,  was  just  at  this 
time  trading  up  the  North  River.  When  the  "New 
Netherland"  arrived,  she  found  lying  at  anchor  a 
French  vessel,  the  captain  of  which  was  about  to 
land  for  the  purpose  of  setting  up  the  standard  of 
France  and  thereby  claiming  possession  of  the  soil 
in  the  name  of  the  most  pious  and  Catholic  King 
Louis.  "  But  the  Hollanders  would  not  permit  him," 
remarks  the  calm  Wassenaer.  In  fact,  to  make  their 
meaning  quite  clear,  and  just  then  receiving  a  timely 
reenforcement  in  the  return  of  the  "Mackerel"  down 
the  North  River — they  put  two  guns  on  a  pinnace 
and  therewith  escorted  the  Frenchman  clear  out  to 

*The  Hudson  River. 

*This,  as  we  have  seen,  made  part  of  the  voyage  in  company  with  the  "Pigeon!* 
carrying  De  Forest  to  Guiana. 

43 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


sea.  Wassenaer  says  he  repeated  the  experiment, 
but  was  ''foiled  in  a  similar  manner/' 

Now  there  was  clearly  no  Dutch  settlement, 
garrison,  or  military  power — no  sort  of  official 
occupancy — at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  River,  nor 
anywhere  else  in  what  is  now  the  state  of  New  York. 
Whatever  was  done  in  this  matter  was  done  by  these 
Walloons  in  Mey's  ship  on  their  timely  arrival.  If 
the  great  Catholic  power  of  France  had  definitely 
preempted  this  key  of  the  New  World,  subsequent 
history  would  probably  have  been  very  different. 
And  the  coming  of  these  Walloons  was  owing  to 
the  ambition,  the  perseverance,  the  leadership,  of 
Jesse  De  Forest.  As  the  relations  become  better 
recognized,  it  is  probable  that  De  Forest's  name  will 
be  remembered  as  deserving  a  definite  place,  however 
modest,  in  American  history. 

B.  Personnel  of  the  Colony. — The  original 
records  of  the  West  India  Company  were  destroyed^ 
about  1820,  including  all  papers  regarding  the  sailing 
of  the  New  Netherland,^  such  as  the  manifest  of 
cargo,  list  of  passengers,  and  so  on.  In  1910  there 
were  sold  in  Amsterdam  five  very  important  docu- 
ments,^  of  recent  discovery,  evidently  contempor- 
aneous copies  of  original  West  India  Company 
records.  These  give  the  full  instructions  sent  over 
with  Mey,  as  signed  by  three  members  of  the  Com- 
pany under  date  of  March,  1624.^    No  list  of  the 

iNot  by  malice  or  accident,  but  officially. 
^Brodhead. 

3"A  W  alloon  Family,"  p.  34. 

^Further  confirmation  of  the  correct  date. 

44 


0 

Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

colonists  occurs  here,  and  as  the  few  records  of  the 
new  settlement  were  unfortunately  destroyed  ^  within 
a  short  time  after  their  landing  by  a  general  con- 
flagration/' none  has  ever  come  to  light.  We  know, 
however,  that  they  formed  a  part  of  the  band  of 
would-be-emigrants  recruited  and  enrolled  by  De 
Forest  at  the  time  of  his  application  to  Sir  Dudley 
Carleton.  It  is  certain  that  two  of  them  were 
Philippe  Du  Trieux  and  his  second  wife,  Susanna 
Du  Chesne.2  Their  daughter  Sara  Du  Trieux,  who 
in  1 64 1  married  Isaac  De  Forest, ^  was  born  either 
just  before  or  just  after  the  landing  of  her  parents. 
She  may  have  been  "the  eldest  child  of  New  Amster- 
dam," though  that  person  is  generally  supposed  to 
be  Sarah  de  Rapalye,  born  June  9,  1625,  the  daughter 
of  Simon  de  Rapalye  and  his  wife  Catherine  or 
Caterina  Tricot.  In  spite  of  Caterina's  conflicting 
memories  at  an  advanced  age,  she  and  her  husband 
are  accepted  by  most  as  among  the  first  comers. 

Amid  the  very  first  records  of  New  Amsterdam 
after  the  blank  caused  by  the  ''general  conflagra- 
tion/' we  find  many  surnames  identical  with  those 
upon  the  "Round  Robin"  presented  by  De  Forest 
to  Carleton.  Besides  those  of  De  Forest  and  La 
Montague,  we  may  note  the  following  duplicates: 
Cornille,  Catoir,  Campion,  Damont,  De  Carpentier, 
De  Croy,  De  Crenne,  Du  Four,  De  la  Mot,  Du  Pon, 
De  Trou,  Caspar,  Chiselin,  Gille,  Lambert,  Le  Roy, 

^According  to  a  letter  written  by  Dominie  Michaelius,  the  first  pastor,  on 
Aug.  11,  1628. 

*Not  Jacquemine  Noiret,  who  died  in  Holland. 
^Son  of  Jesse  De  Forest. 


45 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


Le  Pou,  Maton,  and  Martin.  While  this  is  scarcely 
proof  that  the  groups  of  families  were  the  same,  it  is 
certainly  a  striking  coincidence,  especially  as  there 
would  be  other  like  families  whose  names  had  no 
occasion  to  appear  upon  the  records,  and  may  fairly 
be  considered  as  proof  presumptive. 

C.  Landing  at  Manhattan;  First  Experi- 
ences.— The  little  band  bravely  separated.  One 
part  remained  on  Manhattan  Island;  a  larger  one, 
consisting  of  some  eighteen  families,  with  Adriaen 
Joris  as  leader,  settled  at  "Fort  Orange";^  some 
others,  including  four  couples  who  had  been  married 
at  sea,  built  "Fort  Nassau"  on  the  Delaware  just 
below  the  site  of  Philadelphia,  under  the  advice  of 
Comelis  Mey ;  a  few  more  even  scattered  out  to  the 
mouth  of  the  "Fresh''  or  Connecticut  River.^  Still 
another  little  group  betook  themselves  to  a  small 
bay  or  "bogt"  on  the  west  shore  of  Long  Island, 
about  opposite  Corlaer's  Hook  on  Manhattan,  and 
but  a  little  north  of  the  spot  where  Breuckelen^  was 
soon  to  rise.  The  name  "  Waalbogt " — the  Walloons' 
Bay — survives  in  the  term  "  Wallabout,"  still  applied 
to  the  same  locality.  Says  Brodhead,^  "The  descend- 
ants of  the  Walloons  soon  spread  themselves  over 
the  country  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Waal-bogt,  and 
the  names  of  many  of  the  most  respectable  families 
on  Long  Island  to  this  day  attest  their  French  and 
Belgian  origin." 

iPresently  known  as  Albany. 

2This  settlement,  however,  proved  to  be  short-lived. 

'Brooklyn. 

*P.  154. 

46 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Like  the  ''peres  de  families"  in  Guiana,  these 
colonists  also  sent  back  brave  and  cheerful  word 
concerning  the  new  land.  ''We  were  much  charmed 
on  arriving  in  this  country,"  they  reported.^  Had 
the  Dutch  West  India  Company  been  sufficiently 
far-sighted  in  1623  to  transport  fifty  families  to 
Guiana  when  besought  to  do  so,  and  had  it  returned 
presently  with  cattle,  implements,  and  comforts,  as 
to  the  Hudson  settlement,  instead  of  marooning  a 
few  strong  men  in  a  far  country,  and  neglecting  its 
promises  until  the  leader  found  an  unknown  grave, 
Holland  might  today  have  had  a  vast  colonial 
empire  in  the  New  World  south  of  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama. 

As  soon  as  the  rude  log  forts  were  even  partially 
completed,  the  colonists  with  good  will  "forthwith 
put  the  spade  into  the  ground,"  ^  according  to 
Wassenaer,  ''and  before  the  Mackerel  sailed  the 
grain  was  nearly  as  high  as  a  man,  so  that  they 
were  bravely  advanced." 

D.  Comparative  Historic  Importance  of  the 
Little  Settlement.  —  Here,  again,  is  a  point  of 
importance.  This  was  the  first  permanent,  home- 
building,  farming  settlement  in  the  present  state  of 
New  York.  The  beginning  here  made  was  never 
abandoned  or  interrupted,  but  has  steadily  grown 
into  the  metropolis  of  the  western  world.  And  it 
was  made  by  a  picked  band  of  Belgian-French 
Protestant  refugees,  recruited,  held  together  through 

IN.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  IV,  p.  131. 

«N.  Y.  Hist.  Doc.  Vol.  IV,  p.  132. 

47 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

many  disappointments,  and  launched  by  that  in- 
defatigable Walloon,  Jesse  De  Forest  of  Avesnes. 

IX.    Expedition  of  Jean  La  Montagne, 
De  Forest's  Colleague  and 
Son-in-law,  to  Tobago 

A.  La  Montagne's  Return  From  the  Guiana 
Expedition,  and  Marriage  to  Rachel  De  Forest. 
— When  Dr.  La  Montagne  returned  to  Leyden  from 
the  Guiana  expedition,  he  reentered  the  University, 
and  became  one  of  the  household  of  De  Forest's 
widow,  then  living  on  the  Voldergraft.  A  year  later 
he  married  the  young  daughter  of  the  house,  Rachel 
De  Forest.  Apparently  one  adventure  in  coloniza- 
tion had  but  whetted  La  Montagne's  appetite  for 
more;  since  fifteen  months  after  his  marriage  we  fmd 
him  sailing  with  his  wife  and  baby  on  the  "  Fortuyn," 
commanded  by  his  old  friend  Gelyn  van  Stapels, 
with  some  sixty  odd  other  colonists  bound  for  the 
island  of  Tobago. ^  On  the  way  out,  at  St.  Vincent, 
they  met^  two  men  who  were  the  sole  survivors  of  a 
colony  sent  out  by  the  West  India  Company  to 
Guiana,  under  one  Jan  van  Ryen,  only  a  year  after 
the  return  of  the  survivors  of  the  colony  under 
De  Forest  which  the  Company  had  allowed  to  come 
to  naught.  Captain  Jan  van  Ryen,  lacking  De 
Forest's  tact  and  probably  his  fair  dealing,  had  pro- 
voked the  hitherto  well-disposed  natives  into  killing 
him  and  scattering  his  settlement. 

iQne  of  the  Windward  Islands,  northwest  of  Guiana. 
^Annual  Report  of  West  India  Company. 

48 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

B.  Unsuccessful  Colony  at  Tobago. — La  Mon- 
tagne  remained  at  Tobago  about  five  years;  but,  to 
be  brief,  at  the  end  of  three  he  found  it  necessary  to 
send  his  family  back  to  Leyden ;  and  after  two  more, 
finding  it  still  impossible  to  safeguard  their  return, 
he  sacrificed  his  interests  upon  the  island  and 
rejoined  them  in  Holland.  Four  years  after  his 
departure,^  this  colony  also  was  wiped  out  by 
Spaniards  and  Caribs. 

C.  La  Montagne's  Return,  and  Readiness 
FOR  New  Ventures. — With  a  flexible  mind  finely 
able  to  adapt  itself  with  equal  interest  to  the  wilder- 
ness or  to  civilization.  Dr.  La  Montague  for  a  third 
time  tranquilly  pursued  his  studies  at  the  University 
of  Leyden  until,  in  the  course  of  a  year  or  so,  the 
"wanderlust"  again  seized  him.  His  young  wife 
also,  having  been  comfortably  reestablished  for 
several  years  under  her  mother's  roof,  and  having 
now  the  future  of  several  sturdy  little  sons  to  con- 
sider, appears  to  have  felt  refreshed  and  equipped 
for  further  adventure,  especially  as  two  of  her 
brothers  were  of  the  proposed  party,  and  her  uncle 
Gerard  was  counseling  and  financing  it. 

X.    Emigration  of  Jesse  De  Forest's 
Three  Children  and  Son-in-Law 

A.  Gerard  De  Forest,  Brother  of  Jesse. — 
Gerard  De  Forest  appears  to  have  been  a  leading 
member  of  the  French  colony  in  Leyden.  After  Jesse 

»1633. 

49 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

De  Forest's  departure  in  1623,  his  brother  Gerard, 
up  to  that  time  a  "dyer  in  black/'  applied  for  and 
received  permission  to  occupy  the  place  and  to 
transact  the  former  business  of  Jesse,  a  ''dyer  in 
colors."  Having  few  children  of  his  own,  he  seems 
to  have  felt  a  strong  affection  and  family  responsi- 
bility toward  the  fourteen  children  of  his  brother 
Jesse.  He  had  stood  godfather  to  a  number,  and  as 
chosen  witness  to  La  Montague's  marriage  with  his 
niece  Rachel;  had  apparently  stood  by  the  widowed 
Marie  du  Cloux  as  a  brother,  and  was  now  planning 
a  future  for  her  younger  sons. 

B.  Hendrick  De  Forest. — Of  these,  Henri — or, 
in  the  Dutch  equivalent,  Hendrick — next  older  than 
his  sister  Rachel  La  Montague,  had  already  had  some 
experience  as  a  sailor  and  pioneer  to  the  New  World. 
In  June,  1629,  the  West  India  Company  had  issued 
a  "Charter  of  Freedoms  and  Exemptions  for 
patroons,!  masters  or  private  persons  who  will  plant 
any  colonies  in,  and  send  cattle  to,  New  Nether- 
land."  Of  these  patroons  Kiliaen  van  Rensselaer 
was  perhaps  the  most  prominent.  In  the  Van 
Rensselaer  Bowier  Manuscripts,  recently  translated 
and  ably  edited  by  A.  J.  F.  van  Laer,  the  State 
Archivist  at  Albany,  N.  Y.,  we  fmd  Kiliaen  van 
Renssalaer's  letter-books  from  1634  to  1643,  the  Log 
of  the  yacht  Rensselaerswyck,^  and  many  other 
important  documents,^  including  numerous  entries 

patroon  was  one  who  agreed  to  plant  in  New  Netherland  "a  colony  of  fifty 
souls,"  upwards  of  fifteen  years  old,  within  the  space  of  four  years. 
n636-37. 

3See  "A  Walloon  Family,"  p.  63. 

50 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

concerning  Gerard  De  Forest  and  his  nephew 
Hendrick.  Among  these  is  an  account  of  the  voyage 
in  1636  of  the  Rensselaerswyck,  in  which  several  of 
Jesse  De  Forest's  children  and  grandchildren,  and 
his  son-in-law  La  Montagne,  sailed  to  the  New  World. 

C.  The  Swanendael  Colony. — Van  Rensselaer, 
with  several  other  patroons,  including  Johannes  De 
Laet,  the  historian,  and  David  De  Vries,  the  sea- 
captain,  had  become  interested  in  the  whaling 
industry  at  Swanendael,  on  the  west  shore  of  Dela- 
ware Bay.  On  Dec.  19,  1631,  the  patroons  engaged 
Hendrick  De  Forest  to  go  to  Swanendael  and  take 
command  of  the  colony  already  planted  under 
Houset.  The  voyage, ^  during  which  Hendrick  De 
Forest  acted  as  chaplain^  and  steward,^  was  long 
and  eventful.  Before  the  vessel  arrived,  the  colony 
was  wiped  out  by  the  Indians — "lamentably  killed, 
whereby  they/'*  said  the  patroons  coolly,  "suffered 
incalculable  damage."  ^  De  Vries  then  set  about 
getting  a  cargo  of  salt  at  St.  Martin.  The  patroons 
of  Swanendael  seem  to  have  been  rather  shabby  as 
regards  their  pay-roll,  for  some  years  later,  during 
his  own  absence,  De  Forest  had  to  get  his  uncle 
Gerard  to  sue  them  for  the  amount  due  him.^ 

D.  The  Rensselaerswyck  Expedition. —  In 
1636  Jesse  De  Forest's  two  sons,  Hendrick  and 

i"Voyages  from  Holland  to  America,"  by  David  De  Vries  (passim). 

*"Voorleezer." 

'"Commis  of  the  Victuals." 

*i.e.,  the  patroons. 

5Van  Rensselaer  Bowier  MSS.,  pp.  196,  240,  241. 

•See  "The  Declaration  of  Hendrick  De  Forest"  in  the  notarial  records  at 
Amsterdam,  as  given  (translated)  in  "A  Walloon  Family,"  p.  352. 

51 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

Isaac,  aged  thirty  and  twenty  respectively,  decided 
that  the  time  was  ripe  to  carry  out  their  dead  father's 
long-cherished  and  fixed  desire  to  found  a  family 
home  in  the  New  World.  Kiliaen  van  Rensselaer 
had  previously  planted  a  colony  called  Rensselaers- 
wyck  at  Fort  Orange  on  the  Hudson,  and  he  now 
wished  to  reenforce  this  settlement  by  sending  over 
a  ship  with  settlers,  merchandise,  cattle  and  tools. 
Kiliaen  being  cramped  in  purse,  however,  was  glad 
to  enter  into  a  partnership  with  Gerard  De  Forest. 
In  a  private  letter  he  says,  "As  the  equipment  of 
this  ship  ran  too  high  for  me  I  granted  Gerrit  de 
foreest  a  half  interest  in  it."  ^ 

Among  the  Notarial  Records  of  Amsterdam  is  the 
full  contract^  entered  into  by  "Mr.  Kiliaen  van 
Rensselaer  with  his  associates  of  the  first  part  and 
Mr.  Gerrit  de  Forest  of  Leyden  with  his  associates 
of  the  second  part,"  agreeing  to  divide  equally 
almost  every  expense,  and  adding, 

"For  conveying  the  settlers  and  the  merchandise 
for  the  colony  the  above-mentioned  Rensselaer  shall 
allow  Gerrit  de  Forest  and  his  associates  to  share 
the  right  which  as  Patroon  of  New  Netherland  he 
has  by  virtue  of  act  1 3  of  the  granted  Freedoms  .  .  . "  ^ 

On  Sept.  25,  1636,  the  ship,  not  a  large  one,  set 
sail  from  Amsterdam.  The  skipper  was  Jan  Schel- 
linger;  the  mate,  Hendrick  De  Forest.  Besides  a 
crew  of  twelve  men,  there  were  thirty-eight  of  Van 

*Van  Rensselaer  Bowier  MSS.,  p.  328. 
«"A  Walloon  Family,"  p.  352. 

•This  was  not  a  permanent  distinction  or  social  privilege,  but  referred  to  sailing 
and  traffic  rights. 


52 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Rensselaer's  colonists  for  the  upper  Hudson  and 
fourteen  in  the  De  Forest  party.  Hendrick,  newly 
married,  had  left  his  wife  with  her  mother  for  a 
time;  Isaac  was  a  bachelor  of  twenty;  the  La  Mon- 
tagnes  had  with  them  their  three  sons,  and  a  daughter 
was  born  before  they  landed.  With  them  were 
friends  and  neighbors. 

The  surprising  lack  of  judgment  shown  by  most 
of  these  early  colonial  expeditions,  in  setting  forth 
at  the  autumn  equinoctial,  had  the  usual  results. 
The  voyage  was  one  of  eventful  hardship,  most 
graphically  set  forth  in  the  "Log  of  the  Rensselaers- 
wyck."  Off  Madeira  they  had  a  brush  with  a 
"Frenchman  from  New  Rochelle,''  in  preparation 
for  which  they  "cleared  away  the  chests  and  the 
cows  ^  with  which  the  deck  was  encumbered/'  but 
came  away  none  the  worse  for  the  encounter.  After 
going  as  far  south  as  the  Canaries,  they  caught  the 
trade  winds,  and  at  last,  on  March  i,  1637,  came  in 
by  "Godyn's  Point,"  2  majestically  escorted  by  a 
school  of  whales — "some  ten  or  twenty  swimming 
for  about  two  hours  about  our  ship."  Four  days 
later  they  dropped  anchor  "off  the  Manatans." 
As  soon  as  the  Walloons  were  landed,  with  their 
belongings,  the  yacht  sailed  on  up  the  river  to  Fort 
Orange  with  Van  Rensselaer's  colonists  and  property. 

E.  Location  of  Lands  First  Taken  Up  by  the 
De  Forests. — With  the  intention  of  raising  tobacco, 
the  De  Forests  soon  selected  a  tract  of  fertile  bottom- 

lOne  wonders  where  these  were  bestowed, 
'Sandy  Hook. 


53 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

land  in  the  northern  part  of  the  island,  called  "  Mus- 
coota'' — "the  flat  land'* — by  the  Indians.  Hendrick 
secured  from  van  Twiller,  the  Director,  a  grant  of  a 
hundred  ''morgens"  of  land  "between  the  hills  and 
the  kill  that  runs  round  the  island."  Maps  of  the 
time/  preserved  in  the  New  York  Public  Library, 
show  this  land  to  be  between  Morningside  Heights 
and  Harlem  Creek,^  running  on  the  north  to  perhaps 
124th  Street,  and  on  the  south  to  include  the  high 
land  in  Central  Park  as  far  as  109th  Street.  Here 
he  promptly  put  up  a  thatched  house  "42  feet  long, 
with  a  brick  chimney."  ^ 

F.  Death  of  Hendrick  De  Forest. — Many 
papers  of  importance  concerning  these  early  colonists 
were  wholly  lost  in  the  fire  which  destroyed  the 
archives  of  the  State  Capitol  at  Albany  in  191 1,  but 
the  scattered,  incomplete  records  contain  much  of 
interest.  Hendrick,  still  "mate  and  trader"  of  the 
Rensselaerswyck,  was  called  upon,  when  she  returned 
from  her  three  months'  stay  at  Fort  Orange,  to  sail 
with  her  to  Virginia.  As  his  brother  Isaac,  being 
under  the  age  of  twenty-five,  was  by  Dutch  law  still 
a  minor,  Hendrick  left  his  "Muscoota  bouwery," 
with  other  business  interests,  in  charge  of  his  brother- 
in-law,  Dr.  La  Montagne.  On  the  Virginia  voyage 
Hendrick  De  Forest  contracted  "the  epidemical 
disease,"  ^  then  very  malignant,  and  on  July  26,  1637, 
ten  days  after  the  yacht's  return  to  New  Amsterdam, 

^Reproduced  by  Innes  and  Mrs.  de  Forest. 
2Col.  Doc.  Vol.  XIV,  p.  11. 

'Most  of  the  chimnejs  were  of  the  "catstick  and  daub"  variety. 

♦Van  Rensselaer  Bowier  MSS.,  "The  Log  of  the  Rensselaerswyck,"  p.  382. 


54 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Captain  Chellinger  entered  on  his  log,  "About  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  my  mate  heindrick  de  Freest 
died." 

Again  within  a  year,  La  Montagne  was  called  upon 
to  bury  a  De  Forest  who  had  sought  with  him  to 
found  a  colony  in  the  New  World.  In  each  case, 
daring  had  been  rewarded  only  by  disaster  and  death; 
in  each  case,  also,  a  widow  in  Leyden  was  to  learn 
of  her  loss  long  afterwards. 

XI.  The  ''Muscoota  Bouweries,''  or  Walloon 

Farmsteads 

A.  Hendrick  De  Forest's,  later  La  Mon- 
tagne's. — Hendrick  De  Forest's  holding  was  for 
some  time  honestly  and  ably  managed  by  Dr.  La 
Montagne,  who  presently  made  a  satisfactory  ac- 
counting to  the  widow,  Gertrude  Bornstra,^  who  had 
remained  in  Leyden.  Before  very  long  she  made  a 
second  marriage  with  Andries  Hudde,^  who  found 
Hendrick's  American  property  worth  emigrating  to 
claim  as  his  inheritance.  The  deed  signed  by 
Director  Kieft  on  July  20,  1638,  giving  to  Andries 
Hudde  the  two  hundred  acres  which  had  been 
Hendrick  De  Forest's,  is  the  first  legal  conveyance 
of  land  recorded  on  Manhattan  Island.^ 

La  Montagne  presently  bought  this  property  for 
1800  guilders,  and  named  it  in  hope  "  Vredendael" — 

•Van  Rensselaer  Bowier  MSS.,  p.  382. 

'According  to  an  odd,  almost  Scriptural  custom  of  the  times,  Gertrude  named 
Hudde's  first  child,  born  five  years  after  De  Forest's  death,  and  upon  its  death, 
even  their  second  child,  born  two  years  later,  after  her  former  husband  Hendrick 
De  Forest,  "that  his  name  might  not  die  out  in  the  land." 

»N.  Y.  Colonial  Documents,  Vol.  XIV.  p.  U. 


55 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

Peace  Valley  or  Peaceful  Dale.  As  we  shall  see,  the 
hope  embodied  in  this  name  was  to  fall  sadly  short 
of  realization.  On  this  estate  a  beautiful  flowing 
spring  was  soon  called  "  Montagne's  Fountain." 
This  spring,  still  bearing  the  same  name,  has  sur- 
vived, and  may  today  be  seen  flowing  in  a  rippling 
stream  with  waterfalls  until  it  empties  into  Harlem 
Mere  in  Central  Park.^ 

B.  Isaac  De  Forest's  Holding. — Isaac  de  For- 
est, a  young  man  of  twenty-one  at  his  landing  in 
1637,  at  first  aided  his  brother  Hendrick  to  improve 
the  latter's  bouwery.  Upon  Hendrick's  death,  Isaac 
turned  to  similar  services  for  his  sister  Rachel  and 
her  husband,  with  whom  for  some  time  he  made  his 
home;  but  in  the  meantime  he  also  secured  his  own 
holding  of  land.  This  was  a  strip  of  about  a  hundred 
acres, 2  nearly  a  mile  in  length,  beginning  on  Harlem 
Creek  opposite  Hendrick's  land,^  and  running  east- 
ward to  the  shore  of  the  Hellegat,'*  opposite  Bronck's 
Kill.^  Settlers,  at  this  period,  appear  to  have  been 
little  more  than  "squatters"  recognized  by  the  Com- 
pany, which  required  only  that  the  land  be  culti- 
vated and  improved  within  two  years,  and  that  after 
ten  years'  free  use  the  settlers  should  annually  tithe 
their  crops  ^  to  the  Company.  Formal  titles  appear 
to  have  been  "confirmed"  by  successive  directors. 

iPhotograph  in  "A  Walloon  Family,"  p.  105. 

2"Map  of  Nieuwe  Haerlem  Village  Plots,"  1670,  in  Riker's  "History  of  Harlem,;' 
p.  260. 

'Later  known  as  "Vredendael." 
<The  Harlem  River. 
^About  First  Avenue  and  126th  St. 
*That  is,  hand  over  ten  per  cent. 

56 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

In  time,  of  course,  permanent  papers  were  held  by 
the  grantees. 

Isaac  planted  his  land  to  tobacco  until  his  coming 
of  age,  when  he  at  once  married, ^  and  built  a  dwelling 
upon  it.  He  engaged  two  English  carpenters  to 
make  him  a  substantial  house,  eighteen  by  thirty 
feet,  "with  two  four-light  windows  and  two  three- 
light  windows,"  "tight  all  round"  against  the 
weather;  a  separate  kitchen,  sixteen  by  twenty  feet, 
covered  with  clapboards  and  furnished  with  an 
"English  chimney"  made  of  cobblestone;  also  a 
tobacco-house  sixty  feet  long,  with  "inside  work." 
For  these  buildings  ^  he  paid  three  hundred  Carolus 
guilders,  or  $i6o.  To  meet  such  bills  he  had  some- 
thing from  several  tobacco  crops,  together  with  part 
of  164  guilders  left  him  jointly  with  his  brother  Jan 
from  Hendrick's  estate. 

The  young  couple  lived  upon  this  grant  of  land 
for  a  year  or  more,  until,  as  the  danger  from  the 
savages  became  imminent,  the  young  man  decided 
to  take  his  wife  and  baby  into  town  for  greater 
safety.  He  leased  his  bouwery  to  John  Denton  for 
three  years  ^  and  at  once  moved  closer  in.  Denton 
was  to  take  possession  in  October;  but  before  that 
date  tomahawks  were  out  in  such  force  ^  that  the  new 
tenant  refused  to  begin  residence.  De  Forest's  tilled 
fields  and  new  farmstead  were  laid  waste. As  hold- 

'As  the  bride,  Sara  du  Trieux,  is  entered  on  the  church  records  as  "young  girl 
of  New  Netherland,"  she  was  evidently  not  born  in  Leyden;  and  as  her  parents 
landed  in  the  spring  of  1624,  she  could  not  at  this  time  have  been  more  than  seven- 
teen.   She  may  have  been  born  on  the  voyage,  or  among  the  first  children. 

»N.  Y.  Col.  MSS.,  Vol.  I,  p.  250.  ajuly  6,  1643. 

<N.  Y.  Col.  MSS.,  p.  117.    sjhis  was  the  time  when  Montagne  lost  Vredcndael. 


57 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

ings  of  this  sort  were  perforce  deserted  during  the 
time  the  savages  were  on  the  war  path,  the  owners 
thought  it  safer  1  to  take  out  new  "land  briefs." 
Montagne's  new  patent  was  signed  by  Director 
Kieft  on  May  9,  1647,  two  days  before  his  embarka- 
tion on  a  return  voyage  to  Holland;  while  only  six 
days  later,  De  Forest's  was  issued  by  the  new  Gov- 
ernor, Stuyvesant.2 

By  1650  it  was  supposed  that  a  permanent  peace 
with  the  savages  had  been  established.  De  Forest 
sold  most  of  his  property  at  this  place  to  William 
Beeckman,  a  well-known  early  burgher  of  the  grow- 
ing town.^  Three  years  later  Beeckman  sold  it  to 
Claesen  Swits,  who  within  two  years*  was  murdered 
there,  his  family  carried  off  by  the  Indians,  and  his 
farmstead  destroyed.  This  was  the  occasion  of  the 
Directors'  forbidding  isolated  dwellings.  They  or- 
dered laid  out  a  village  wherein  the  surviving  settlers 
might  gather  for  mutual  defense  and  common  safety. 
Isaac  De  Forest's  land,  being  well  situated,  well 
cleared,  and  easily  accessible  from  "the  Hellegat,"^ 
was  chosen  as  the  site.  Here  in  1658  was  located  the 
village  of  Nieuwe  Haerlem,  with  Isaac's  wagon-track 
or  farm  lane  for  its  one  first  street.  This,  of  course, 
in  time  grew  to  be  a  city  in  itself,  until  merged  in 
Greater  New  York.  De  Forest  and  La  Montagne 
had  had  enough  of  the  Muscoota  region;  they  were 
too  safe,  and  too  well  occupied,  in  New  Amsterdam, 

iQr  perhaps  it  was  legally  necessary. 

^Calendar  of  Dutch  MSS..  p.  375. 

3N.  Y.  Col.  MSS.,  p.  46. 

*Sept.,  1655. 

*The  Harlem  River. 

58 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

to  resume  residence  at  or  near  the  new  village.  La 
Montagne's  son  Jan,  however,  was  one  of  the  first 
householders,  and  for  long  a  leading  citizen  of  New 
Haerlem. 

Isaac  and  Sara  De  Forest  lived  first  in  New 
Amsterdam  on  the  "  Marckveldt,"  or  market  square.^ 
just  outside  the  fort,  and  divided  from  it  by  a  narrow 
lane  called  Winkel  Straet.  A  little  later  he  moved 
into  a  better  house  on  Brouwer  Straet,  or  the  Brew- 
ers' Street,  so  named  because  the  great  brewery  of 
the  West  India  Company  was  the  most  notable 
building  upon  it.  De  Forest  himself  was  by  this 
time  a  brewer  on  a  large  scale.  This  street  De 
Forest  and  some  others  presently  paved  at  their  own 
expense;  it  has  ever  since  been  called  Stone  Street, 
being  the  first  paved  way  in  the  city. 

At  the  time  the  records  begin, ^  the  holding  of 
Philippe  du  Trieux  was  on  high  ground  near  the 
East  River,^  overlooking  ''Smit's  Vly."  ^  At  the  time 
of  his  daughter  Sara's  marriage  to  Isaac  De  Forest 
he  was  living  nearer  the  center  of  the  settlement  in 
a  house  which  he  had  built  on  "  Bever  Graft."  ^  This 
is  now  the  site  of  Fulton  Market. 

C.  General  Conditions. — Something  may  be 
added  regarding  the  general  conditions  of  life  in  the 
colony.  In  1643  Director  Kieft  told  Father  Jogues, 
the  Jesuit  missionary  to  the  Indians,  that  there  were 

•Maps  and  plans  in  Innes;  also  Calendar  of  Dutch  MSS.,  p.  370. 
^Perhaps  earlier,  of  course. 
'Maps  in  N.  Y.  Public  Library. 
♦Still  called  "The  Swamp." 
^Beaver  Street. 


59 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

at  that  time  '*four  or  five  hundred  men  of  different 
sects  and  nations"  living  in  or  close  to  New  Am- 
sterdam,^ and  that  eighteen  different  languages 
were  spoken.  Mrs.  de  Forest  quotes  from  Madam 
Knight's  "Brief  Description  of  New  York,"  as 
follows : 

"The  Buildings  are  Brick  generally,  very  stately 
&  high.  The  Bricks  in  some  of  the  Houses  are  of 
divers  Coullers  and  laid  in  Checkers,  being  glazed, 
look  very  agreeable.  The  inside  of  them  is  neat  to 
admiration."^  The  doors  of  most  of  the  houses  were 
"equally  divided  as  in  Holland  with  an  upper  &  a 
lower  half";  "the  gable  ends  of  the  high  roofs  were 
notched  like  steps."  ^  Both  Dutch  and  Belgian- 
French  seem  to  have  taken  great  satisfaction  in  the 
cheap  abundance  of  building  materials.  Many  sup- 
plies and  comforts,  of  course,  were  still  shipped  from 
the  Old  World;  the  colonists,  however,  appear  to 
have  been  both  industrious  and  ingenious  in  the  local 
production  of  property  and  merchandise. 

"The  Huguenot  refugees,"  says  the  author  of 
"French  Blood  in  America,"^  "were  gentle,  trained 
in  many  arts,  and  possessed  of  the  keen  perceptions, 
the  courtesy,  and  the  easy  adaptability  of  their 
race.  .  .  .  Tradition  says  that  the  first  to  utilize 
the  remnants  of  worn-out  garments  by  cutting  them 
into  strips  and  weaving  them  into  carpets  were  the 
French.  The  rag  carpet  was  in  its  day  an  advance 
agent  of  comfort  and  culture.    .    .    .    Among  the 

'"Narratives  of  New  Netherland,"  by  J.  F.  Jameson,  p.  259. 
2"A  Walloon  Family,"  p.  119. 

3"French  Blood  in  America,"  by  Lucian  J.  Fosdick,  pp.  406  et  seq. 

6o 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

earliest  importations  of  the  French  settlers  were  the 
spinning-wheels  and  looms  of  better  quality  than 
were  previously  known  here.  .  .  .  Where  the 
English  and  Dutch  dyed  linen  yarn  of  heavy  quality 
and  wove  it  into  ugly  stripes  and  checks  for  bed  and 
window  curtains,  the  French  ^  used  either  white  linen 
or  that  with  but  one  color,  dainty  shades  of  light 
blue  or  dusky  green  or  a  subdued  gold  colour,  made 
by  dyes  of  which  they  had  brought  the  secret  with 
them,  being  preferred.  .  .  .  The  cultivated  taste 
and  the  dainty  arts  brought  from  France  made  the 
homes  of  the  Huguenots  much  more  attractive  in 
appearance  than  those  of  the  other  colonists,  even 
though  the  latter  might  have  far  more  wealth.'* 

De  Forest  and  Du  Trieux^  are  the  only  dyers 
noted.    Their  skill  perhaps  served  all. 

Men  servants,  skilled  workmen  and  ordinary  labor- 
ers were  more  easily  to  be  found  than  women  ser- 
vants. On  emigrating,  the  young  De  Forests  had 
been  prudent  enough  to  engage  and  bring  with  them 
two  stout  men,  Tobias  Teunissen  and  Willem  Fred- 
erick Bout,  under  contract  to  serve  for  three  years 
after  landing.^  Their  sister,  young  Mrs.  La  Mon- 
tagne,  however,  with  four  little  children  at  first  and 
presently  more,  and  a  household  including  her  two 
brothers  and  these  two  serving  men,  besides  her  hus- 
band, could  find  no  domestic  aid  until  a  man-servant 
Ariean  was  engaged  at  twelve  and  a  half  florins  per 
month.    The  Rev.  Jonas  Michaelius,  the  first  Dutch 

iposdick,  p.  406  et  seq. 

*A  worsted-dyer  from  Roubaix,  near  Avesnes. 
^Van  Rensselaer  Bowier,  MSS.,  p.  360. 

61 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

minister  sent  to  the  colony,  soon  after  wrote  home, 
"Maid  servants  are  not  here  to  be  had,  at  least 
none  whom  they  can  advise  me  to  take;  and  the 
Angola  slave  women  thievish,  lazy  and  useless 
trash."  1 

The  tobacco  plantations  were  largely  worked  by 
negro  slaves,  either  privately  owned  by  the  individual 
settlers,  or  hired  from  the  West  India  Company. 
The  Directors  of  the  Company  encouraged  private 
expeditions  to  "buy''^  slaves  on  the  Guinea  Coast. 
They  "granted  liberty  to  particular  merchants  to 
send  two  or  three  ships  to  the  coast  of  Africa  to 
purchase  slaves,  &  to  promote  the  settlement  of  the 
country  by  importing  the  same."  ^  These,  of  course, 
were  mostly  men,  not  relieving  the  problem  of  do- 
mestic service.  Isaac  De  Forest  was  a  slave-holder, 
but  he  finally  sent  to  Holland  for  a  house-servant, 
paying  all  the  expenses  of  her  passage.  Here,  how- 
ever, he  caught  a  Tartar,  for  she  "sought  to  get  out 
of  the  house  as  soon  as  she  was  in  it,  abusing  him 
and  his  wife  very  spitefully. 

Others  had  similar  experiences.  Home  making 
laid  heavy  burdens  upon  the  pioneer  mothers,  strug- 
gling single-handed  with  the  problems  of  ceaseless 
household  toil  and  the  simultaneous  rearing  of  large 
families.  Doubtless  many  another,  like  Rachel  De 
Forest,  succumbed  at  thirty-three  or  thirty-four, 
leaving  a  spotless  home,  six  young  children,  several 
little  graves,  and  a  husband  soon  to  be  consoled,  like 

^Letter  of  Michaelius,  in  N.  Y.  Col.  Doc,  Vol.  II,  p.  768. 

2N.  Y.  Col.  Doc,  XIV.  p.  209. 

'Records  of  New  Amsterdam,  Vol.  II,  pp.  350,  351. 

62 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

so  many  of  our  egoist  forefathers,  who  complacently 
prided  themselves  upon  the  large  families  for  which 
they  were  indebted,  on  the  average,  to  the  joint 
efforts  of  three  wives  apiece — successively,  of  course, 
in  so  highly-civilized  a  country  as  ours. 

D.  Danger  from  the  Indians. — Danger  from  the 
savages  was  for  a  long  time  acute.  Massacres  oc- 
curred here  as  elsewhere.  The  local  government 
even  made  regulations  forbidding  settlers  to  estab- 
lish isolated  homesteads.  For  a  number  of  years  La 
Montagne  was  Chief  Military  Officer,  leading  expe- 
ditions in  person  and  laying  all  possible  plans  for 
the  defense  of  the  colony.  This  was  no  light  respon- 
sibility. 

When  the  new  Director-General,  William  Kieft, 
reached  New  Amsterdam  in  March,  1638,  he  was 
empowered  to  select  his  own  councillors.  He  chose 
only  one,  and  that  one  Dr.  La  Montagne,  *'a  proper 
experienced  person."  Kieft  and  La  Montagne,  then, 
for  a  long  time  were  the  Council — no  others  being 
added.  Kieft  was  warlike,  determined  upon  exter- 
minating the  Indians;  La  Montagne  saw  this  as 
reckless  folly.  Kieft  persisted,  and  on  Feb.  25, 
1643,1  slaughtered  a  number  of  Indians.  Naturally 
they  retaliated.  The  result  of  Kieft's  foolhardiness 
nearly  destroyed  the  whole  colony.  The  Indians 
killed  every  settler  they  could  fmd.  Scarcely  one 
remained  on  Manhattan  Island  except  in  New  Am- 
sterdam.^    Montague's  prosperous  bouwery  at  Vred- 

»Calendar  of  Dutch  MSS.,  p.  84. 
^History  of  Harlem,  by  Riker. 

63 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


endael  was  wiped  out,  Montagne  losing  everything 
that  he  was  unable  to  carry  away. 

In  the  late  autumn  of  the  same  year  ^  a  touching 
appeal  for  aid  was  despatched  by  the  colonists  to  the 
West  India  Company. ^  A  condensed  extract  fol- 
lows : 

"On  the  island  of  the  Manachatas,  from  the  north 
even  unto  the  Fresh  Water  ^  there  are  no  more  than 
five  or  six  spots  inhabited  at  this  date.  .  .  .  We 
have  no  other  shelter  remaining  for  ourselves,  our 
wives  and  children,  than  around  and  adjoining  Fort 
Amsterdam  at  the  Manahactas.  The  fort  is  defence- 
less and  entirely  out  of  order,  and  resembles  (with 
submission)  rather  a  mole-hill  than  a  fort  against  an 
an  enemy.  .  .  .  The  population  is  composed  mainly 
of  women  and  children;  the  freemen  (exclusive  of 
the  English)  are  about  200  strong,  who  must  protect 
by  force  their  families  now  skulking  in  straw  huts 
outside  the  Fort.  .  .  .  We  turn  then  to  your 
Honors;  we  humbly  pray  and  beseech  you  to  be 
pleased  to  help  us  in  this  distressed  plight,  so  that 
this  place  and  all  of  us,  with  wives  and  children, 
may  not  be  delivered  over  a  prey  to  these  cruel 
heathen.''  * 

Their  Honors,  however,  both  stingy  and  hard  of 
heart,  afforded  no  relief.  The  West  India  Company 
seem  ever  to  have  had  ''the  souls  of  shopkeepers" 
in  any  question  of  reenforcing  or  defending  a  colony 

lOct.  24,  1643. 
»Col.  Doc,  p.  190. 

'From  the  Hudson  River  to  the  Connecticut. 
*Col.  Doc,  p.  190. 

64 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

they  had  once  established.  A  second  petition,* 
equally  despairing,  was  addressed  to  the  States 
General  at  The  Hague.    This  (in  part)  said: 

"We,  wretched  people,  must  skulk,  with  wives  and 
children  that  still  survive,  in  poverty  together,  in 
and  around  the  fort  at  the  Manahatas  where  we  are 
not  safe  even  for  an  hour  whilst  the  Indians  daily 
threaten  to  overwhelm  us.  Very  little  can  be  planted 
this  autumn,  and  much  less  in  the  spring;  so  that  it 
will  come  to  pass  that  all  of  us  who  will  yet  save  our 
lives  must  of  necessity  perish  next  year  of  hunger 
and  sorrow  unless  our  God  have  pity  on  us."^ 

No  aid  was  afforded  by  Holland.  It  was  clear  that 
war  with  the  savages  was  not  to  be  averted.  La 
Montagne  was  made  "General"  of  the  united  Dutch, 
Walloon,  and  English  forces.^  Continuing  to  hold 
this  position,  he  headed  many  expeditions  against 
the  Indians,  and  successfully  defended  the  little  set- 
tlement, until  in  the  summer  of  1645,  the  red  men, 
apparently  tired  out,  concluded  a  peace  which  it  was 
hoped  might  prove  permanent. 

When  Peter  Stuyvesant  landed  ^  as  the  new  Direct- 
or-General, he  at  once  retained  La  Montagne  as  a 
member  of  his  council,  so  that  the  subsequent  records 
contain  frequent  references  to  "Councillor  La  Mon- 
tagne" as  one  of  the  most  influential  men  of  New 
Amsterdam.  In  1655  the  armed  savages  suddenly 
appeared  before  Manhattan  in  a  fleet  of  sixty-four 

iNov.  3,  1643. 
»N.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  I,  p.  139. 
»N.  Y.  Col.  MSS..  p.  186. 
«.May,  1647. 

65 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

canoes.  The  ensuing  scenes  were  very  bloody. 
Again  many  of  the  whites,  Hke  Kieft,  were  for  a  war 
of  extermination;  but  La  Montague,  reaHzing  the 
weakness  of  the  little  colony,  again  pleaded  peace 
counsels;  and  once  more  the  village  escaped.  Next 
year,  the  difficulties  with  the  Indians  proving  still 
acute  and  increasingly  threatening,  he  was  made 
Vice-Director  at  Fort  Orange. ^  The  same  year  he 
was  one  of  two  men  ^  to  sign  the  treaty  of  sale  with 
the  Indians  for  the  territory  on  the  Schuylkill. ^  A 
few  years  later,*  while  he  was  still  living  at  Fort 
Orange,  his  daughter  Rachel,  the  wife  of  Surgeon 
Gysbert  Van  Imbroech  of  Esopus,  was  carried  away, 
with  her  little  daughter,  Lysbet,  by  the  Indians,  and 
only  La  Montague's  personal  reputation  among  the 
savages  fmally  secured  their  release  unharmed.^ 

La  Montague  appears  to  have  had  a  gift  for  getting 
on  peaceably  with  the  natives,  similar  to  that  which 
Jesse  De  Forest  showed  in  Guiana.  We  have  seen 
that  when  the  latter  died,  he  was  "deeply  regretted" 
by  the  natives,  who  had  taken  a  great  liking  to  him; 
while  his  successor,  in  spite  of  the  friendly  relation 
opened  by  De  Forest,  at  once  so  alienated  the  savages 
that  he  and  his  colony  soon  perished. 

La  Montague  appears  as  one  of  the  most  coura- 
geous, efficient  and  public-spirited  citizens  of  New 
Amsterdam.  His  personal  property  and  interests 
seem  to  have  been  wholly  sacrificed  in  his  defense  of 

^Albany  on  the  Hudson. 

^L.  van  Dincklage  being  the  other 

3N.  Y.  Col.  Doc,  p.  593. 

n663. 

*N  Y  Col.  Doc.  XllI,  pp.  246,  271,  273. 

66 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

the  settlement  against  the  Indians.  His  latter  days 
were  weary,  sad,  and  harried  by  failing  fortunes.  In 
1662,  being  then  nearly  seventy,  he  wrote  to  Stuyve- 
sant  and  the  council  at  New  Amsterdam  a  rather 
touching  letter,  saying  in  part, 

"  I  always  kept  my  household  in  victuals  and 
clothes  here  as  temperately  as  a  common  burgher;  ^ 
but  the  excessive  dearth  of  all  things  has  driven  me 
insensibly  into  such  need  and  poverty.,  as  that  never 
in  the  68  years  that  I  have  lived,  so  great  distress  have 
I  felt,  finding  myself  destitute  of  all  means  to  provide 
for  my  daily  bread,  and  provisions  for  the  winter."* 

In  1664,  New  Netherland  passed  into  English 
hands.  La  Montague  drops  out  of  sight.  He  may 
have  returned  to  Holland  with  Stuyvesant.  I  do 
not  find  note  of  his  death. 

XII.  Place   Held   by  the  Walloons  in  the 
Early  Years  of  New  Amsterdam 

A.  Civic  Organization. — In  the  early  days  of 
New  Amsterdam,  the  civic  organization  was  much 
like  that  of  a  modern  city,  with  similar  officials  under 
different  names.  The  Director-General,  commonly 
called  the  "Governor,"  held  at  first  the  place  of 
Mayor.  His  Councillors,  few  or  many  at  his  choice, 
were  appointed  by  himself.  There  was  thus  a  de- 
cided centralization  of  power  in  the  chief  magistrate. 
As  the  authority  of  the  Director-General,  however, 
extended  over  all  New  Netherland,  the  city  govern- 

'He  was  still  Vice-Director  at  Fort  Orange. 
*Riker's  History  of  Harlem,  p.  794. 

67 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

ment  as  such  soon  became  more  definitely  organized. 
After  Kieft's  obstinacy  in  forcing  an  issue  with  the 
Indians  had  such  disastrous  results,  he  was  ready  to 
allow  some  local  aid  and  cooperation  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  colony.  In  1643  he  invited  the 
"Commonalty  of  the  Manhattans"  to  elect  some 
six  or  eight  of  their  number  as  an  advisory  board. 
These  formed  the  "Eight  Men,"  later  the  "Nine 
Men,"  as  they  were  called;  they  attended  court, 
acted  as  referees  and  advisers,  and  when  asked,  ex- 
pressed their  opinion  upon  any  matter  in  which  the 
Governor  and  his  Council  saw  fit  to  consult  them. 
In  1653,  again,  a  decided  change  occurred.  The  city 
being  incorporated,  the  Nine  Men  gave  way  to  a 
court  of  magistrates  consisting  of  a  schout  or  mayor, 
two  burgomasters,  and  five  schepens.  "  Small  burgh- 
ers" were  something  like  ordinary  members  of  a 
modern  Commercial  Club,  especially  in  one  where 
the  membership  is  not  cheapened  by  over-solicita- 
tion; and  the  "Great  Burghers"  were  more,  perhaps, 
like  chairmen  of  the  leading  committees  of  a  Com- 
mercial Club  or  Board  of  Trade.  All  city  offices, 
even  minor  ones,  were  much  more  guarded  in  respect 
to  eligibility,  taken  with  more  serious  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility, and  in  general  indicated  either  a  higher 
social  standing,  or  greater  dignity  of  character,  than 
is  commonly  the  case  in  modern  civic  afi^airs.  To 
be  either  a  "Small  Burgher"  or  a  "Great  Burgher," 
the  privileged  party  must  "take  up  his  abode  here 
in  New  Netherland  three  consecutive  years,  and  in 
addition  build  in  this  city.  New  Amsterdam,  a 

68 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

decent  citizen  dwelling,"  "continuously  maintain 
fire  and  light  therein'';  and,  in  addition,  be  chosen 
by  the  city  authorities,  take  an  oath  of  fidelity  to 
the  city,  pay  the  prescribed  fees,  and  be  duly  regis- 
tered. The  nucleus  of  the  first  list  was  made  up 
ex  officio  of  the  Governor  and  Council,  the  clergy,  the 
commissioned  officers  in  the  city  regiment,  and,  by 
an  unblushing  "grandfather  clause,"  their  sons  and 
sons-in-law  as  well. 

B.  Representative  Walloon  Citizens. — Cor- 
nelis  Mey  of  Hoorn,  the  skipper  engaged  to  take 
over  De  Forest's  colony  of  emigrants,  remained  with 
them  as  "director"  for  the  first  year.  After  him 
Willem  van  Hulst,  a  man  of  little  force,  served  for 
a  time;  then,  in  response  to  the  desire  of  the  Walloon 
colony,  a  man  of  their  own  blood,  faith,  and  language  ^ 
was  sent  out  as  director — Peter  Minuit,^  son  of  Jean 
and  Sara  Minuit,  Walloon  refugees  to  the  Huguenot 
colony  at  Wesel.^  Oddly  enough,  while  no  one  ap- 
pears to  have  considered  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of 
Plymouth  a  Dutch  colony  because  they  sailed  from 
Leyden,  yet  it  has  been  assumed  that  the  Belgian- 
French  colony,  sailing  at  the  same  time  from  the 
same  place,  were  Hollanders.  It  is  true  that  the 
first  sailed  in  a  ship  called  the  "Mayflower,"  under 
auspices  of  the  "Virginia  Company,"  while  the  latter 
embarked  in  a  vessel  called  the  "New  Netherland," 

iLetters  of  Michaelius  (1628)  in  N.  Y.  Col.  Doc,  Vol.  II.  Article  by  Rev.  J.  G. 
Sardemann  of  Wesel,  in  Dawson's  Hist.  Magazine  for  April,  1868.  Statement  of 
Harless,  State  Archivist  of  Dusseldorf,  in  N.  Y.  Gen.  and  Biog.  Record  for  Oct., 
1895.  2Appleton's  Diet,  of  Am.  Biog. 

'On  the  lower  Rhine,  not  far  from  either  France  or  the  Netherlands. 

69 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

chartered  by  the  West  India  Company;  yet  it  was 
but  through  a  disappointment  to  earnest  efforts  that 
the  Walloons  had  not  come  through  arrangements 
made  with  the  English  corporation — in  which  case, 
presumably,  they  would  long  have  been  classed  as 
British  emigrants.  At  all  events,  the  greater  part 
of  the  first  settlers  of  Manhattan  have  been  but 
recently  perceived  to  be  French  Protestants;  and 
it  may  still  be  news  to  some  that  the  first  real  Gov- 
ernor ^  was  also  one,  being  born  in  a  Walloon  colony 
of  French  parents,^  and  a  deacon  in  the  Walloon 
Church  at  Wesel  until  the  year  before  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  New  Netherlands.  It  is  probable  that 
his  surname  is  properly  the  French  ''Minuit*' — mid- 
night— and  no  more  rightly  **Minnewit"  than  "Du 
Trieux*'  is  properly  "Truax,"  or  Molyneux  "Mon- 
lux,"  though  both  of  these  family  names  have  been 
so  spelled  and  so  pronounced. 

If  Minuit's  nationality  has  been  mistaken,  there 
has  been  no  such  error  in  regard  to  his  services.  At 
the  time  of  his  arrival  the  little  settlements  were  in 
sore  danger  from  the  savages,  who  were  even  in- 
dulging in  cannibalism.  At  least  they  wholly  made 
way  thus  with  one  Tyman  Bouwensz,  ''after  they 
had  well  cooked  him."^  Minuit  speedily  made  a 
peace,  never  broken,  with  the  Mohawks,*  concen- 
trated his  settlements  on  Manhattan,  and  before 
five  months  were  ended  had  bought  peaceably  from 

^Though  technically  the  third  "Director." 
^Appleton's  Diet,  of  Am,  Biog. 

3N.  Y.  Col.  Doc.  Vol.  III.    Extracts  from  Wassenaer. 
*The  recent  feasters. 


70 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

the  Indians  the  entire  island  of  Manhattan,  more 
than  22,000  acres,  for  sixty  guilders — less  than 
twenty-five  dollars.  Even  when  turned  out  of  office 
a  few  years  later,  when  the  Dutch  outnumbered  the 
Walloons,  he  organized,  promoted,  and  successfully 
planted  the  colony  of  New  Sweden  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  Delaware. 

In  the  State  Papers  at  Albany,  such  as  the  Register 
of  the  Provincial  Secretary;  in  the  Aldermanic  Rec- 
ords of  New  Amsterdam  in  the  City  Hall,  New  York, 
and  in  the  printed  records  of  New  York  City,  such 
as  the  list  of  office-holders  from  O'Callaghan^s  New 
Netherland  Register,  are  to  be  found  scores,  perhaps 
hundreds,  of  entries  indicating  the  position  and  ser- 
vices of  the  Walloon  citizens  of  New  Amsterdam. 
In  the  Appendix  to  J.  W.  De  Forest's  single  volume, 
"The  De  Forests  of  Avesnes,"  appears  a  copious 
selection  of  entries  concerning  the  De  Forest  family 
and  those  closely  connected  with  them  by  marriage, 
such  as  the  Du  Trieux  and  La  Montagues,  De 
Riemers  and  Van  Imbroecks.  Many  others  are  to 
be  found  in  the  Year  Books  of  the  Holland  Society 
of  New  York,  the  ''Documentary  History  of  the 
State  of  New  York,"  and  the  "New  York  Historical 
Collections,"  as  well  as  in  the  quarterly  publications 
of  the  "New  York  Genealogical  and  Biographical 
Society."  In  the  "New  York  Historical  Society 
Collections"  for  1885,  also,  is  a  very  interesting  and 
illuminating  article  of  some  length,  by  Mrs.  Robert 
De  Lancey,  on  "  Burghers  and  Freemen  of  New 
York." 

7> 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

In  the  first  list  issued  of  "Those  who  have  the 
Burgher  Right  Pursuant  to  Privilege,"  ^  the  name  of 
Johannes  La  Montagne  heads  the  list  for  the  "Great 
Burgher  Right,"  and  that  of  Isaac  De  Forest  the 
one  for  the  lesser  privilege. ^  Not  long  afterward, 
Governor  Stuyvesant,  having  "taken  into  serious 
consideration  and  reflection  the  small  number  of 
Great  Burghers"  .  .  .  "found  it  advantageous 
for  this  city  to  increase  the  said  number  of  Great 
Burghers  and  to  reenforce  it  with  six  old  and  suitable 
persons."  One  of  these  was  Isaac  De  Forest,  pres- 
ently referred  to  as  "one  of  the  most  influential 
burghers  and  inhabitants  of  the  city."  ^  Five  days 
later  he  was  also  elected  "Schepen" — a  coveted 
honor  at  this  time. 

Naturally,  he  had  before  this  held  creditably 
many  minor  oifices.  In  1652  he  was  one  of  the 
Nine  Men;  in  1653,  city  inspector  of  tobacco;  in 
1656,  Schepen,  and  inspector  of  weights  and  mea- 
sures; in  1658,  again  Schepen,  and  asks  to  be  re- 
lieved of  the  superintendence  of  the  Brewer's  Street. 
He  seems  to  have  been  much  in  demand  ^  as  "Orphan- 
master" — that  is,  guardian  of  the  children  whose 
parents  had  been  killed  by  the  Indians,  or  other 
minors.  Often  he  is  on  record  as  ransoming  children 
held  by  the  savages;  often  appointed  administrator, 
arbitrator,  holder  of  trust  funds,  or  given  power  of 
attorney  in  interests  of  importance. 

iDated  April  10,  1657. 
2The  Small  Burgher  Right. 

^"Records  of  New  Amsterdam,"  Vol.  N,  p.  315. 

^Extracts  from  Dutch  Documents  in  Year-Book  of  the  Holland  Society  for 
1900,  pp.  112,  117,  121,  etc.    Twenty  or  more  De  Forest  entries. 

72 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Judging  from  the  entries  of  his  foreign  shipments, 
he  seems  also  to  have  been  one  of  the  leading  brewers 
and  tobacco  merchants.  He  owned  a  number  of 
houses,  loaned  money,  bought  a  tract  of  land  on 
Long  Island,  dealt  in  furs,  owned  boats,  entered 
into  various  business  firms.  Innes  gives  ^  "  Isaac  De 
Forest  ...  a  prominent  place  in  the  early  his- 
tory of  New  Netherland."  By  the  records  he  is 
shown  to  be  a  public-spirited  man.  When  Stuy- 
vesant  ^  asked  for  voluntary  subscriptions  to  repair 
and  strengthen  the  town's  outer  walls,  he  was  one 
of  the  first  to  respond.  In  1653  he  was  among 
twenty  -  one  prominent  citizens  who  offered  and 
promised  the  burgomasters  and  schepens  to  pay  cer- 
tain extra  taxes  "for  paying  the  public  expenses 
and  keeping  in  repair  the  works''  of  the  little  city.^ 
As  previously  mentioned,  he  was  one  of  the  property 
owners  on  Brouwer  Straet  to  offer  to  pave  it  at  their 
own  expense  "with  round  stones,"  furnishing  both 
the  material  and  the  labor. ^  Once  he  was  assessed 
a  hundred  florins  "for  the  defense  of  the  city,"  no 
one  else  being  assessed  more  than  two  hundred.  In 
1664  he  was  spoken  of  as  "one  of  the  most  affluent 
inhabitants  of  the  city." 

Yet  at  his  death  he  was  not  a  wealthy  man,  his 
estate  being  valued  only  at  some  15,000  florins.  He 
had  lived  honorably  and  as  became  a  man  of  public 

'"Amsterdam  and  Its  People,"  by  J.  H.  Innes,  Ch.  VIII,  pp.  71-74. 

*In  passing  it  might  be  noted  that  the  wife  of  Peter  Stuyvesant,  most  Dutch  of 
men.  was  a  Walloon;  so  also  was  his  sister's  husband.  Stuyvesant's  descendants 
are  half  Walloon  at  the  outset. 

'"Records  of  New  Amsterdam,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  67,  127. 

«lbid,  p.  300. 


73 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


spirit;  he  had  brought  up  a  large  family ;i  he  had 
been  administrator  of  the  estate  and  guardian  of  the 
children  of  both  his  brother-in-law  and  his  father- 
in-law;  and  he  had  repeatedly  furnished  ransom  for 
the  piteous  little  orphans  held  captive  in  savage 
hands.  On  the  whole,  he  had  probably  done  some- 
thing better  with  his  money  than  hoarding  it,  when 
in  the  summer  of  1674  he  died  at  the  rather  early 
age  of  fifty-six. 

His  wife,  Sara  Du  Trieux,^  survived  him  without 
remarriage  some  eighteen  years,  living  quietly  in  the 
Brouwer  Straet  house.  Their  eight  sons,  all  of  whom 
had  been  taught  some  useful  occupation,  in  course 
of  time  scattered  as  to  their  place  of  residence,  but 
all  prospered  in  worldly  affairs  and  in  a  reputation 
for  being  upright,  public-spirited  men.  The  De 
Forests  in  America  now  number  uncounted  thou- 
sands, all  descendants  of  Jesse  and  Isaac  De  Forest, 
and  all,  so  far  as  known,  intelligent  and  useful  citi- 
zens, serving  the  state  wherever  their  lot  falls.  Their 
names  are  thick  on  the  alumni  rolls  of  the  best  col- 
leges; the  **De  Forest  scholarships"  and  **The  De 
Forest  prize"  at  Yale  are  among  her  coveted  dis- 
tinctions. Despite  exile,  poverty,  sorrow  and  dis- 
appointment, and  his  own  lonely,  lost  grave  beside 
the  Wyapoko,  the  eager  dream  and  hope  of  Jesse 
De  Forest  of  Avesnes,  that  he  might  safely  and  per- 
manently estabhsh  his  family  in  the  New  World,  has 
been  fully  realized. 

lEight  sons  and  a  daughter  survive  him. 

20r  Sarah  Philips,  as  she  is  called  in  the  Dutch  records  to  indicate  the  name  of 
her  father,  Philippe  Du  Trieux. 


74 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

The  services  of  Dr.  La  Montagne,  the  first  physi- 
cian of  the  colony,  for  a  long  time  the  Governor's 
only  Councillor,  and  the  wise  Commander-in-chief, 
against  the  savages,  of  the  united  Dutch,  English 
and  Walloon  forces,  have  already  been  noted.  No 
extended  account  has  been  given  of  Philippe  Du 
Trieux,  De  Forest's  father-in-law.  He  was  one  of 
the  first  ship-load  of  settlers,  and  for  a  long  time 
"Court  Marshal''  of  New  Netherland.  De  Trous, 
Trows,  Truells,  and  Truaxes  of  today,  as  well  as  a 
few  who  still  maintain  the  older  name  in  uncorrupted 
form,  are,  for  the  most  part,  the  descendants  of 
Philippe  Du  Trieux  and  his  wife  Susanna  Du  Chesne. 
Some  of  the  surnames  of  this  little  colony  have  en- 
tirely disappeared  in  modern  life,  some  have  so 
altered  as  to  be  scarcely  recognizable,  some  are  still 
evident  in  large  numbers.  So  far  as  visible  surname 
is  concerned,  a  deal  of  good  blood  disappears  by 
marriage  in  each  generation;  yet  it  is  hardly  to  be 
doubted  that  the  qualities  of  this  old  Huguenot 
stock  have  come  down  by  the  distaff  side  as  well  as 
by  that  of  the  spear.  Their  dear-bought  freedom  of 
conscience;  their  intention  of  good  citizenship;  their 
hardy  physique  and  industry;  their  warm  affections, 
"answerable  courages,"  and  skill  in  the  joy  of  living, 
are  doubtless  working  for  good,  though  unrecognized, 
in  later  generations. 

C.  Important  Contributions  to  the  Early 
Life  of  the  Colony. — But  apart  from  this  proba- 
bility, if  we  look  back  dispassionately  at  the  un- 
questioned early  actions  of  these  first-comers,  there 

75 


The  De  Forests  and  the 

appear  to  be  several  worth  recounting,  when  we 
pause  to  consider  how  differently  history  might  have 
developed  along  the  North  Atlantic  seaboard,  had 
these  pioneers  been  absent  or  of  a  different  sort. 
First  may  be  noted  the  driving  out  by  De  Forest's 
Walloon  colony,  on  their  arrival  at  Manhattan  in 
1624,  of  the  French  commander  about  to  land  for 
the  purpose  of  setting  up  the  arms  of  France,  then  a 
strongly  Catholic  power.  Second,  the  establishment, 
by  this  same  French  Protestant  band,  of  the  first 
permanent,  crop-raising,  town-building  settlement, 
never  since  destroyed  or  abandoned,  upon  the  soil 
that  later  became  the  State  of  New  York,  and  upon 
the  site  of  the  greatest  city  in  the  western  hemi- 
sphere. Third,  the  purchase  of  the  island  of  Man- 
hattan from  the  Indians  by  Minuit  upon  his  arrival 
in  1626.  Fourth,  the  treaty  of  La  Montagne  with 
the  sachems  for  the  purchase  of  all  the  territory  on 
the  Schuylkill  River.  Lastly,  at  a  critical  time, 
after  many  massacres,  the  successful  defense  of  the 
little  colony  against  the  Indians  by  a  combined  force 
of  Walloons,  English  and  Dutch  under  command  of 
Jean  La  Montagne.  All  these  are  surely  events  of 
moment  in  the  early  history  of  both  the  metropolis 
and  the  commonwealth. 

XIII.   Conclusion:  Investigation  of  the  Facts 
BY  THE  Holland  Society  of  New  York 

Some  years  ago  the  Holland  Society  of  New  York, 
a  social  and  patriotic  organization  whose  chief  quali- 
fication for  membership  is  direct  descent  in  the  male 

76 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

line  from  one  or  more  early  Dutch  settlers,  began 
to  be  assailed  by  doubts  regarding  the  priority  of 
their  claim  to  being  descended  from  the  first  founders 
of  New  Amsterdam — a  confidence  in  which,  with  a 
pleasant  pride,  they  had  long  reposed.  The  gather- 
ing evidence  contrary  to  this  supposition,  and  the 
ensuing  discussions,  presently  caused  a  delegation  of 
the  members  to  visit  the  city  of  Leyden  on  a  mission 
of  special  research.  The  result  of  this  and  of  further 
inquiry  appears  in  the  Year  Book  of  the  Holland 
Society  for  1895,  in  an  article  as  follows:  ^ 

"Jesse  De  Forest  or  Peter  Minuit?  Facts  from 
Leyden  going  to  show  that  the  former  was  the 
founder  of  New  Amsterdam, 

"A  letter  from  George  W.  Van  Siclen,  a  prominent 
officer  of  the  Holland  Society,  says:  .  .  "  'Pos- 
sessing some  information  on  that  subject  myself,  1 
still  thought  it  best  to  write  to  Mr.  Charles  M.  Dozy, 
Archivist  of  Leyden,  and  inquire  into  the  historical 
facts.  1  have  just  received  his  answer,  which  I  send 
herewith. 

'When  the  delegation  of  the  Holland  Society  of 
New  York  visited  Holland  in  1888,  a  most  elaborate 
display  of  old  maps,  books,  engravings  and  original 
MSS.  was  prepared  for  us  at  Leyden,  and  I  had  in 
my  hand  the  original  minutes  of  the  City  Council  of 
Leyden,  dated  Aug.  27,  1622,  granting  permission  to 
Jesse  De  Forest  to  enroll  the  Walloon  colonists. 
(Also  the  original  MS.  poll-tax  list,  giving  names, 
localities,  and  assessments  of  William  Brewster,  John 

»Year  Book  of  the  Holland  Society  for  1895,  p.  121. 

77 


The  De  Forests  and  the 


Robinson  and  the  other  Pilgrim  Fathers  while  they 
were  living  in  Leyden  in  1622.) 

George  W.  Van  Siclen. 
New  York,  March  13,  1895.' 

The  letter  from  Mr.  Dozy  follows: 

.  .  You  ask  my  opinion  about  the  founding 
of  New  York.  You  are  right  in  thinking  that  the 
question  does  interest  me,  as  I  made  researches  about 
Jesse  De  Forest  at  Avesnes  and  Sedan. 

"Minuit  was  the  third  Governor  of  the  colony; 
he  organized  the  administration;  he  made  a  treaty 
with  the  Indians  that  rendered  the  Dutch  proprietors 
of  the  whole  island  instead  of  possessors  only  by 
right  of  first  discovery  or  occupation;  he  fortified 
the  settlement  that  had  already  existed  three  years. 
His  importance  for  the  colony  should  not  be  disre- 
garded, but  before  his  directorship,  since  1623,  there 
was  a  settlement  on  Manhattan  Island  that  had 
already  received  important  accessions  from  Holland, 
with  a  supply  of  live  stock  and  farming  tools. 

"Jesse  De  Forest,  born  at  Avesnes  between  1570 
and  1580,  living  in  1601  and  1608  at  Sedan,  and  1605 
at  Leyden,  had  applied  in  the  name  of  fifty-six 
Walloon  families,  who  wished  to  go  to  Virginia,  to 
the  ambassador  of  England  at  The  Hague.  .  .  . 
In  August,  1622,  Jesse  sent  a  petition  to  the  States- 
General  of  the  United  Provinces,  asking  to  be  allowed 
to  enroll  Protestant  families  for  emigration.  .  .  . 
The  permission  was  given,  the  ship  was  equipped, 
and  in  March,  1623,  the  New  Netherland  left  the 

78 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Dutch  shores.  In  May  the  mouth  of  the  River 
Hudson  was  reached.  One  division  of  the  colonists 
went  on  and  built  Fort  Orange,  the  origin  of  the 
present  Albany.  But  the  other  part  settled  on  Man- 
hattan Island  and  the  name  Walenboght  or  Walloon 
Bay,  the  Wallabout  of  today,  bears  testimony  to 
their  being  Walloons.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  from 
that  fact,  from  the  arrival  of  the  New  Netherland 
in  May,  1623,  dates  the  permanent  occupation  of  the 
site  of  New  York. 

"It  was  Jesse  who  had  written  the  address  to 
England,  and  who  was  the  advocate  of  the  would-be 
colonists  before  the  Ambassador;  it  was  Jesse  who 
had  given  the  impulse  to  the  expedition  by  his  peti- 
tion to  the  States,  and  had  enrolled  the  emigrants. 
.  .  .  As  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  first  perma- 
nent settlement  on  Manhattan  dates  from  May, 
1623,1  the  fact  that  Jesse  De  Forest  prepared  and 
organized  that  colonization^  and  was  almost  certainly 
the  leader  of  it,  gives  him  a  right  to  be  called  the 
founder  of  New  Amsterdam. 

Charles  M.  Dozy." 

The  manful  publication  of  these  papers  by  the 
disappointed  Holland  Society  adds  weight  to  the 
evidence,  such  as  was  afforded  when  John  Robinson's 
bitter  enemies  admitted  that  he  was  "the  most 
learned,  polished  and  modest  spirit  that  ever  sepa- 
rated from  the  Church  of  England." 

Mt  will  be  noticed  that  Mr.  Dozy,  though  one  of  the  careful  authorities,  still 
gives  1623  as  the  correct  date  of  landing.  This  was  before  the  discovery  and 
publication  of  De  Forest's  Journal,  as  previously  noted. 

*See  previous  pages. 

79 


Walloon  Founding  of  New  Amsterdam 

Plans  for  the  tercentenary  of  the  founding  of  New 
York  City  are  already  under  way.  In  this  every 
effort  toward  accuracy  will  doubtless  be  made,  judg- 
ing from  the  researches  and  tentative  plans  already 
being  made.  In  the  New  York  Genealogical  and 
Biographical  Record  for  January,  1914,^  is  published 
an  article  of  some  length  upon  Philippe  Du  Trieux, 
which  closes  with  the  following  words: 

"The  earlier  history  of  Philippe  Du  Trieux  con- 
firms the  historical  data  which  have  led  historians  of 
the  New  Netherland  to  place  the  first  settlement  of 
that  colony  in  1624,  and  to  ascribe  to  a  company  of 
Walloons  who  came  thither  in  that  year  under  the 
leadership  of  Jesse  De  Forest  the  honor  of  being  the 
first  citizens  of  what  is  now  New  York.  In  1924, 
when  the  State  of  New  York  celebrates  its  three 
hundredth  anniversary  as  a  European  settlement, 
Jesse  De  Forest  and  his  little  band  of  exiled  Walloons 
will  be  found  to  lead  the  long  procession  of  emigrants 
who  for  one  reason  or  another  have  made  the  New 
World  their  resting-place.  And  of  the  few  of  this 
early  company  who  settled  on  Manhattan  Island, 
Philippe  Du  Trieux,  because  of  his  now  full  record, 
may  claim  special  consideration." 

1924  is  now  a  milestone  not  far  ahead.  Before 
that  is  reached  it  is  hoped  that  those  interested  in 
their  country's  historic  past  will  more  universally 
recognize  the  place  and  the  services  of  Jesse  De 
Forest,  the  Walloon  founder  of  the  little  pioneer 
settlement  which  has  come  to  be  the  metropolis  of 
the  Western  World. 


